Heart of the Porcupine
by GwendolynnFiction
Summary: Guilt-stricken and broken after Sherlock's suicide, John lives the life of a subsistence hunter, isolated in the frozen tundra of remote Alaska. Sherlock returns to his grieving friend and attempts to determine what he so badly miscalculated. John was supposed to grieve and heal and marry. John was always the stronger of the two of them, after all. Slash Johnlock.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Please please review?**

Chapter One

Sherlock was cold. The wind bit at his face wherever it could creep between the seams of his fake fur lined coat. It seared like a burn, different in kind from the cold he knew. Sherlock drew his blankets tighter, ignoring the haughty glance it earned from his snowmobile driver. It was three o'clock and clear skied but the day was dim, the sun barely rising over the mountains in the distance.

He hated this place. Miles and miles of flat, unyielding land. Packed snow and barren frozen trees. There was no data here, at least none that he understood. The snowmobile driver navigated their way across the ice without hesitation, his eyes catching on the wooded mountains. He likely knew every tree. An odd level of spatial memory for a common idiot but then, Sherlock noted, there was nothing else out here to do with one's brain, even a vacuous one. He'd probably memorize every individual pine quill, were he here for long.

It'd taken two airplanes and a flying deathtrap called an Apollo CSA to get to this middle of Arctic nowhere, but Sherlock wasn't planning on staying longer than strictly necessary. The snowmobile roared and the wind flapped against his ears, blocking out everything else. There was nothing but white, trees, and wind here.

Their destination was obvious. There was nothing to break up the endless stretch of white but one very ramshackle half-buried hut squatting in the snow. The driver drove straight for it, his eyelashes pinched against the wind. His eyelids were threatening to freeze closed. The man rubbed them occasionally, breaking off the tiny collected icicles building beside his eyes.

The driver's face was white with frostbite, left exposed to the wind. Pride, Sherlock figured. The man wore a red parka and jeans beneath his home-sewn fur hood, cuffs, and boots. There was no shortage of modern fabrics, then – he could buy a balaclava. It was a cultural thing, probably. The man's whole outfit was likely culturally driven. Meaningless, then. Sherlock turned his face back to the approaching hut, desperate for more data. The roof was fuzzy where it was exposed – dry grass stood up from its light dusting of snow and waved in the faint breeze. Sod insulation, Sherlock thought. Apparently this barren land thawed enough in the summer for such plants to grow.

Five dogs were chained away from the house and barking like wild things. Their chain had dug a channel into the bark of the tree holding them back, a wound which had long since begun to heal. They'd been here for years, then. The house itself was clearly aged. The roof's sod had faded to a lifeless brown from years of exposure. The wood beams before the front door were similarly stained with age. The door frame showed signs of rot at the bottom of the poles where they disappeared into the thick snow. The snowmobile rumbled to a stop outside the squalid little home, shuttered, and silenced itself.

There were notches in the home's door frame, where heavy objects had scraped and banged against it. A series of small notches by the top of one supporting beam showed where someone had begun to saw through it, only to stop and change their mind – an inexperienced carpenter or a sudden change of design? Snow was piled on either side of the doorframe; it'd needed to be dug out recently. There were footsteps in the snow banks, leading behind the house and back toward the dogs. Only one size of snowshoe; likely only one person. Likely a man, given the size. Sherlock watched the heavy, fur-covered door push open, feeling his stomach flip uncomfortably.

A short, stocky man stepped out and quickly shoved the door back in place. He was not dressed like the native snowmobile driver. He wore an animal hide coat, a fur hood, boots, and mittens, and pants made of some mottled white material – likely yet more animal skin. Sherlock tried to focus his eyes in the horridly bright sun. His insides felt like they were trying to climb their way into his throat; was this yet another false alarm? Another extreme adventurist trying out a few months of miserable living to write about it on their social media outlet? Sherlock snarled quietly, taking in the confident stance, the way the dogs quieted, how the driver's shoulders relaxed, his jaw loosened – burying his pride. No, this man was respected – in an environment notoriously antipathic toward whites and newcomers. This was a white man raised in this environment, someone who could live it without considering any other way.

"Driver, turn around," Sherlock ordered, his voice muffled by his blankets and the wind. Sherlock jerked the cloth down and pulled off his ski mask, stripping it off his face and over his hair. "Driver -" he started again, but stilled, his eyes finally filling in the details that he'd missed; the weathered face, the twitching hand, the dark eyes he'd never be able to forget. John Watson stood outside that squalid building, his animal fur hood still shielding his head but nothing on his rapidly whitening face. Sherlock gripped his ski mask in his fist, wishing he could put it back on. John's eyes darted over each of his features, as if searching for signs of plastic surgery, an elaborate ruse.

Sherlock swallowed, unsure what to do with his hands, anticipation surging through him. He suddenly felt like a child, wrapped up in the thick quilts. He could barely get out of the snowmobile's sidecar fast enough. The packed snow crunched beneath his thick soled boots and John's eyes shot down to stare at his feet, as if that meant something.

John looked older. Wrinkles had carved their way around his lips and eyes where they hadn't been before. He'd lost weight and gained muscle, though it was hard to estimate how much he'd changed beneath the thick animal hide coat he wore.

_What are you doing here? _Sherlock wanted to snarl, but stayed silent.

_How long have you been here?_

"Special delivery," the driver groused, apparently tired of waiting while they stared at each other. John straightened suddenly, his stance stiffening and his brain visibly clicking back online.

"Taikuu," he replied, his voice steady and unhurried. Sherlock blinked. He'd heard the word before in this horrid tundra. Some pleasantry, unimportant, he'd thought – but now it was the first word he'd heard John utter in years.

"Yuay," the man replied and it sounded like a joke. John's lips jerked slightly in that way he had of faking amusement to be polite – definitely a joke, then. "Qilamik," the driver growled at Sherlock, glancing meaningfully at his duffel, though he clearly knew Sherlock did not speak the language. Sherlock sneered at him, quickly deciding not to comment.

John sucked in a breath. Sherlock whipped his head around to look at him, but the man's face was closed again, staring out at the tundra as if there would be answers there. Then he turned, walked inside the sod house, and shut the door behind him.

The dogs started barking again. Sherlock's face and fingers burned as the cold reasserted itself. The driver busied himself throwing Sherlock's duffle bag off the snowmobile. It landed with a muffled thud. The snowmobile rumbled back to life and darted across the snow. Sherlock listened to the roaring engine slowly fade into the distance, his palms sweating and instantly freezing to his gloves.

He wanted to stay out here, stand and wait until John's closed expression broke and he came outside to join him. It'd be a dramatic gesture, waiting for the man but Sherlock had no illusions about the nature of negative forty degree weather. He would die out here and quickly.

_Would he let me die? _Sherlock wondered, hesitating. He wanted to know. He wanted to see John open that hide-covered door again and usher him into the relative warmth inside.

_Idiot. _It'd be meaningless. John wouldn't stand and watch anyone slowly die of exposure. John would open the door to his worst enemy, even if only to kill him mercifully.

That was still a possibility, Sherlock thought, eyeing the closed door. He had no illusions about John's skills – if the man wanted him dead, he'd be dead.

His calves were slowly going numb, the epidermal layer hardening in the cold. His snow pants were insufficient and his boots stopped at his ankles. He'd have frostbite in minutes without the blankets and warm snowgo beneath him.

John would either bring him inside or kill him. He wouldn't let him die. Standing in the snow would only make him angry. Sherlock sighed and bent down to grab his duffel bag.

The door pushed open stiffly. Some type of hide was wrapped around the inside of the door and nailed along the edges, thick enough to press against the outer frame. A well-insulated door but the room was still cold. Sherlock shoved it closed behind himself and did not turn, letting his eyes adjust to the sudden darkness. The hide on the door smelled faintly of mold and rot. A snowy mist clouded the air around Sherlock and slowly settled into a wet film over his clothing – condensation from the briefly open doorway, Sherlock realized. Something crackled behind him and Sherlock breathed in the thin, smoke-flavored air of a wood-burning stove. Sherlock turned.

The small kerosene lamp hanging on a metal hook from the single crossbeam lent the room a dingy orange glow. Shelves lined the back wall by the iron stove, stacked with large metal cans and a few dented pots. There were no extra hooks by the door for a stranger's coat. There was only one cot, a

mattress clearly made with hide and covered with yet more furs - worn on the edges where the hides had scraped against the exposed wooden walls for years.

John pushed another log into the stove and pressed the metal door closed until it clicked. His hands were heavily calloused, evidence of shovels and picks and gripping rope. His muscles bulged in his arms, firm beneath his skin. His hair had been self-cut many times over with a sharpened knife – likely the same one he used to shave. That blade was dulling now, clearly. Stubble broke out over John's face and neck, though only in patches. He wore a thin button-up shirt and jeans in the house – like he'd just walked straight out of London and arrived in an Inupiat igloo by mistake. His face was hard, whipped by wind and red with healing frostbite. He glanced up at Sherlock and ran a hand down over his mouth, his face rippling for a moment, breaking the stoic, solid mask. Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, but John's gaze tightened, turning angry, and Sherlock hesitated. He could feel his hands sweating and cursed his body; why would that help? John stood up and stretched to grab a pot from the top shelf of the tiny kitchenette, the silence reestablished.

Everything in the squalid little place ached with passed time. The axes and saws hanging by the door were thinned by too much use and sharpening. The floor was scraped where the single chair had dragged, back and forth from its cramped place between the tiny table and the wall, where no right-handed man would sit. There was water damage on the wall, beneath the single coffee cup hanging on a nail above the stove. Where the water had dripped down the handle as it dried, where only a left-handed man would place it. No, the evidence was consistent. A left-handed man had lived here – alone – for two years at least.

The table was better carved than the chair, the small countertop better than that. John was improving at this fetid life.

Most men did not retreat to the Arctic when their friends died. They moved on, healed, got new friends. Sherlock felt something ugly twist in his gut. What had he overlooked?

Three years alone in this place. Why?

John's face was white. He looked sick. He swallowed too often, like he was fighting back bile. He pulled a barrel from beneath the kitchen shelves and leveraged it open. Water, Sherlock recognized, watching John scoop some out with his pot and put it on the heating stove. Sherlock felt a smile twitch at his lips, relief flooding him at the familiar sight of his friend making tea. They'd both survived.

Small broken strands of fur were sprinkled on every surface, gray strands that didn't match any of the white and black dogs outside. Sherlock picked one up between his fingers and snapped it curiously. Hollow strands- definitely not a dogs. Caribou? Muskoxen? Some other kind of large game that lived here? Sherlock had no data.

John sighed, a heavy mournful sound in the quiet, and dropped into the single chair. Sherlock's smile melted from his face at the sound. John clasped his hands in his lap and stared at them.

"So you're alive, you lied to me, and whatever it was that made you jump is dealt with now so you've come back," John concluded, his voice rough. Sherlock nodded cautiously, a reminder tingling in his brain that this was John's tone when things had gone spectacularly, horribly wrong.

_He won't forgive you, _Molly had said. Why? Why not? Sherlock didn't know what to say. He gazed around the room again. Why was John here?

"Yes," Sherlock stated finally, because for once John's conclusions were accurate. John nodded, his jaw tightening. Anger, Sherlock identified, unsure what to do with that knowledge.

"Right. Yes," John said. His way of processing aloud, Sherlock remembered, closing his eyes against the flood of memories that that information brought. He looked up to find John staring at him, his sturdy brown eyes moving over Sherlock's hair, his coat and gloves, his boots and snowpants where his thighs were starting to thaw and burn.

"So. You jumped," John stated, glancing up to meet Sherlock's eyes.

_He won't forgive you. _Sherlock swallowed, unable to talk. John frowned heavily, his wrinkles digging deeper into his mouth.

"Three targets. You, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock listed. There was not much more to say. John nodded slowly and glanced back at his hands. He rubbed his thumb deeply into his palm and sighed.

"And this was the only solution that came to you?" he asked.

_No. _But this was the best option, the one that best guaranteed John's life.

Sherlock didn't speak.

"Right. I'll drive you back into town," he stated and pushed himself up from his chair. Sherlock stared at him, trying to process. That was not right. John would be angry, he'd predicted that, but John didn't look angry at all. He looked tired.

"I'm not leaving," Sherlock replied, keeping his voice deep. That always helped make John agree with him. John's jaw tightened. He was grinding his teeth now, Sherlock noted.

"That is not your right," John stated, like an order, his face flickering in the lamp light.

"You are angry with me," Sherlock replied, hoping John would snap and yell at him. Stating the obvious tended to help with that. But John only nodded and walked past him to reach the layers of strange clothing hanging by the door.

_You're alive, you lied to me, and whatever it was that made you jump is dealt with now so you've come back. _That was what had happened; what more was there to say? Sherlock faltered and John jerked open the door, sending another blast of fog into the room. He turned, just outside the doorway, apparently waiting for Sherlock to follow. Sherlock tipped his chin up in defiance and stood his ground. John's face rippled with fury and he slammed the door in front of him, leaving Sherlock alone in the dim home.

_~~/~~_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

John stumbled toward the dogs, ignoring their barking. He had to get far away from here before he broke down. He shook out the frozen harnesses, wrestling them back into dog shapes, his heart racing. He'd kill Sherlock if the man came out to talk to him.

_I'd never kill him. _

John inhaled sharply, pulling painfully cold air into his lungs. He shook out the two lines and canvas sled bag, glad he could do this without thinking. The dogs leaped at the end of their lines, yipping and growling with excitement. All but Gladstone, who stayed calmly buried in the snow, his feet beneath him. He was a large black malamute, strong enough to pull and steady enough to lead, now that he was grown. He waited calmly while John hitched him to the sled and harnessed up the others.

"Hike!" John shouted, his voice coming out too rough, too angry, and the dogs leaped forward. They knew the path. They remembered where he'd set his traps and Gladstone led them forward without faltering.

John wished they'd snap at each other and run in opposite directions like they used to. Force his brain to focus on them. He couldn't think about anything else, not right now. He didn't know what to think, what to feel. He should have predicted that a man like - a _genius _- would not have jumped, not without some _stupid __stupid _plan to catch him. And he'd jumped. The dogs cruised to a stop in front of his first trap, their tails and tongues wagging happily.

The trap was empty. John rested his forehead against the wooden driving bar and closed his eyes. The dogs yipped, expecting to be driven forward.

He could barely remember life in Baker Street. The constant noise of buses, ambulances, and shouting drunks outside those tall windows. Mrs. Hudson, always puttering in and out, checking on Sherlock.

Sherlock.

John closed his eyes, bile rising into his throat. That body splayed on the sidewalk, blood seeping through his hair. Everything, everything that was London for him… Gladstone whined, sensing something wrong.

_A lie? _That nightmare he'd left behind nothing but a lie?

John jerked his head up before the emotion could swamp him.

"Hike!" he shouted and the dogs pushed forward.

~~/~~

He rode back from the traps empty handed. The sun was down already, having hardly broken the horizon, and darkness shrouded the miles of frozen land. He was starting to believe he'd find his home empty, no sign of his hallucination anywhere in sight. The thought dragged at him. It'd be a danger night, tonight, after seeing his friend's face again, his proud stature and blue penetrating eyes. The brain could lie to itself, even Sherlock had discovered that, so many years ago.

_Body's betraying me. Interesting, yes? Emotions. The grit on the lens, the fly in the ointment._

John closed his eyes as the sled whipped across the river ice.

_Yeah, alright Spock, _he'd said. He'd been so happy then.

He'd lock the guns in the underground food cache, let the north wind bury them in snow.

There were snowmobile tracks leading to his house. Charlie's. John would recognize them anywhere; he liked to ride his brakes before every turn. A spot in the snow where Sherlock's duffel had landed and footsteps up to the house. John exhaled slowly, trying to gather himself, trying to process what he was feeling. Gladstone hesitated, responding to him, and John steered the sled toward its usual spot beside a crop of trees, where it was always easy to find after a heavy snow. Gladstone worked with him, predicting the movement, and the sled slid to an easy stop.

John stepped off the foot boards and started toward the wheel dogs to unhitch them first, giving them each a pat and praise as he went. Gladstone stayed by his side as he unloaded the bait box and tarp and started on tying up the dogs. He started shoveling out the pile of snow behind the sled, beyond the reach of the dogs' tethers and the dogs started barking and whining with excitement, anticipating their meal. He dug out the dogfood pile, the winter's store of frozen fish and lean caribou carcasses and the dogs howled.

Sherlock could hear them from inside without a doubt. John forced himself not to turn around, knowing his old friend would be standing just inside the small window there, staying out of sight while he watched them. John pulled out ten frozen whitefish and the dogs started jerking on their lines, their collars catching. He grabbed an axe out of the sled and split each down the center before throwing two to every dog. The malamutes crunched down the frozen chunks while John tidied up the harnesses, delaying when he'd have to go inside.

Gladstone trotted toward the house when he'd finished, showing off his freedom to the other dogs though they were still too busy gnawing on their fish to pay him any mind. He turned back finally, noting John's absence, and stared back behind him, his blue eyes penetrating the darkness. John followed reluctantly.

He'd made a life here in the silent tundra. One that had nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock would want him to go back, be John Watson again like everything was fixed. He was alive, it was all a _magic trick, _and they had won. John closed his eyes and collapsed down on the snow beside his house, leaning on the doorframe. He didn't want to go inside.

Sherlock was alive.

John exhaled and pushed his head between his knees. He was risking hyperventilating. Sherlock had faked his death. And never contacted him, never told him.

_And I collapsed, _John thought, shame churning in his stomach. He'd tasted his gun before the end of the first week. After a month he realized Sherlock's smell had faded from the couch and he'd gone to the bedsit, bringing nothing but his gun and a tarp. He'd gone back and packed his bags. His one last attempt to keep from killing himself. John tugged off a glove and rubbed a hand over his face, warming his cheeks where they froze.

Gladstone shoved his head under his elbows, his frozen nose pressing against John's bare palm. John turned and rubbed the dogs face to heat it and Gladstone shuffled closer.

Sherlock had never cared about him as much as he'd cared for Sherlock. He should have gotten over that fact years before. He'd gotten over mourning him. But he never quite managed that, never left this place.

Sherlock was here to fetch him back.

John looked up at his sod home. No other house for forty miles. That was rather the point.

Sherlock was alive. He could feel the sickness in his stomach settling, the joy rising. The rest of his life would be better, knowing that.

John imagined sitting in his chair, the noise of England surrounding him, the scent of chemical supplies and rotting experiments in his nose. Sherlock Holmes alive and well, gazing at him as if he cared so deeply, only to bounce off without a word. He'd try again to get close to the phenomenal man and again he'd fail. Get left behind. Shoot himself in the teeth. John pushed himself up off the snow, gritting his teeth.

He'd gotten his wish. He could see Sherlock Holmes again, if only for a night before the man fled the silent tundra.

John remembered being with Sherlock, running through London, that warm hand in his, the shared handcuff chain swinging between their wrists.

There was something different to mourn, now, John thought, feeling that empty hollow in his chest that'd never fully healed.

John closed his eyes and pulled open the front door, walking in slowly despite his habit and letting Gladstone in behind him.

Sherlock Holmes was sitting at his rickety kitchen table, sipping out of his mug, looking for all the world like he'd never touched John's kitchen, much less exploded it. The cabinets were open, the supplies scrambled. The jars and boxes of imported food supplies were scattered over the countertop and floor, the stove door cracked open, too much wood piled inside.

An appropriate start to one more day with the man.

Gladstone growled, his happy demeanor gone. His hackles slowly raised over his back and neck and his lip curled up to reveal his broken front tooth from when he'd tried to crack a frozen whalebone. Sherlock's eyes widened and John reveled in it, fury whipping through him.

It was gone in only a moment and John sighed, exhausted again. Gladstone glanced at him, his lips twitching over his canines. John pulled off his parka and shook the snow off the wolf ruff before hanging it up beside the door. He walked forward to his kitchen, knowing the dog would relax in time. He didn't want to deal with it.

"I made tea," Sherlock stated. John glanced at him. It wasn't like him to state the obvious. Sherlock glanced at his cup and swallowed. Ah. An apology. John returned to pulling a log out of the stove without burning himself, deciding not to comment. A disordered kitchen was hardly the salient crime here, was it? He turned to drop the wood on the floor beside the stove, glad to see it wasn't burning much yet, and saw Sherlock wince in his periphery. Guessing his thoughts, perhaps. "You raised that dog yourself, bought the others," Sherlock declared.

Showing off, trying to pick up where they'd left off.

_I know you're a genius, Sherlock, _he thought and set the creamed corn back on its shelf with too much force, slamming it heavily. He couldn't make tea. He only had one mug and Sherlock had his. John left his hands on the counter and dropped his head, doing his best to breathe evenly.

_Sherlock is alive._

"Why are you here?" Sherlock hissed in that probing way he had of asking questions he'd failed at deducing on his own.

_Why are you? _John wanted to ask but he knew why. Sherlock was here to get his friend back, the last puzzle piece to put 221B back to the way it'd been.

_That's gone, Sherlock. _John swallowed heavily, the hollow inside him widening horribly. He didn't know how to say that aloud. He turned around and leaned against the countertop, taking in his dead friend again. The man wore pleated trousers and a button-up shirt, like he'd stepped straight out of a model ad. His stunning eyes focused on him for a moment, his pale face drawn with concern. He couldn't be more out of place sitting in a rather badly home carved chair, leaning forward to avoid catching his head on the slanted roof. Gladstone was lying down by the door with his feet beneath him, ready to leap to action, his gaze unwavering from the newcomer. Sherlock frowned and John blinked, remembering that the man had asked him something.

There was something strange about speech after a hiatus. John cleared his throat, trying to corral his feral thoughts together into something he could say aloud.

_The world is better with you in it, _he thought and closed his eyes. Sherlock Holmes was alive.

London was nothing without him in it. John swallowed. Living without him had seemed so very useless.

"I googled the top ten most remote places in the world," John said finally. Sherlock frowned and glanced around the sod igloo.

"This is not one of them," he replied. John shook his head, wondering yet again how the man knew all that he did. There wasn't another human around for nearly forty miles of forest, sea ice, and tundra. But no, this wasn't in the top ten.

John didn't reply, knowing Sherlock did not need his confirmation. The genius could probably read the rest of the story in his clothing, in this house, in the old dog sled outside. The plane unable to take off in the blizzard, the Inupiat couple offering him shelter, the nights in their city home learning to scrape the flesh off skin, learning how to mush, learning how to read the ice. Finally giving up on postponing his flight and canceling it. Traveling with them to their sod house on the tundra. They'd never asked any questions of him.

"Why are you here?" Sherlock hissed and stood up from his chair, away from the slanted roof. Gladstone rose immediately, his lip curled in warning. "You had friends, army colleagues, Lestrade, that fat man who introduced us. A constant string of women. Why are you here?" Sherlock demanded. John clamped his jaw, trying not to punch him. If he fought Gladstone would join in for sure.

"You'd heal, you'd marry, that's what grieving friends _do," _Sherlock growled. John forced himself to breathe normally.

"You calculated that," John stated, feeling an old wound start to rupture. He couldn't grieve this again. The traps were empty but he could check them again. It'd make the third time that day but Sherlock wouldn't know that. John paused, catching himself. It'd been too long. Of course Sherlock would know. He'd read it in the snow, in his clothing, in the thawed dog harnesses; in god knew what else.

"Yes," Sherlock stated. John nodded.

"And you let me grieve you, when you had another option," he confirmed. Sherlock nodded, his eyes wary.

_I loved you._

"You weren't supposed to be like this," Sherlock stated, frowning down at Gladstone as if the lead dog held the answers. "What did I miss?" he muttered.

John winced.

"The world is better with you in it," he stated and Sherlock's eyes shot back to him, his mouth starting to stretch into a wide smile. Something in John's chest ached watching that smile fade as quickly as it'd come, realization taking its place. "I'll drive you back to town in the morning."

John wanted to spend their one night laughing, telling jokes by the stove, reliving old stories of clambering over rooftops and shooting emoticons into Mrs. Hudson's walls, but he couldn't get his brain to work, couldn't talk to his dead friend like they were both alive again. How many times had he spoken to the inside of this igloo, pretending Sherlock Holmes was with him again?

John made dinner and stayed silent. Sherlock ate it, his gray eyes never leaving him.

Sherlock spent that night sitting at the kitchen table, his fingers arched in front of his mouth. Gladstone lay by the door, his eyes locked on the intruder, no trace of fatigue in his eyes. John spent it on his cot, staring at the ceiling and wondering what Sherlock was so focused on. The igloo was pitch black and silent, nothing but the occasional skitter of a vole inside the home to break their vigil, but Sherlock didn't move.

John didn't try to sleep. The nightmares had stopped sometime after the second winter here. The merciless silence had a way of wearing down sharp memories to a dull numbness. Nothing cared about Sherlock here. Nothing changed. The hare in his trap didn't miss him.

The arctic had a schedule of its own, a way of churning. Ice froze and stretched over the river only to melt and crack and slip back into the current. A few thousand caribou appeared one morning and covered the land only to disappear by the next, leaving nothing but hooves and scat to mark their passing. Geese arrived with the melting ice and passed all too quickly. John hunted what he could, ate everything he could, and preserved what he couldn't, and nothing showed any hint of concern that Sherlock Holmes had left his world. There was a reassuring brutality to life here.

Sherlock Holmes was back in his world and he didn't want to sleep; not when he'd wake up and have to drive him to town, watch him fly off to a louder, more exhilarating life without him. John listened to the constant, unyielding silence that night and tried to remember what he was supposed to feel. Relief, probably. He didn't have to mourn anymore.

But he hadn't been mourning anymore. John exhaled slowly, trying to figure out what that meant.

He'd needed Sherlock Holmes before. Needed Sherlock to keep him from landing in that bedsit an isolated, traumatized man and never crawling out.

But he'd ended up there anyway.

John clenched his jaw closed and saw Sherlock's gaze jerk toward him.

He'd ended up here. But he knew how to live here, a silent traumatized man. And Sherlock couldn't hold out his hand and say 'it could be dangerous' and fix him again. John swallowed, surprised by how very much he'd broken. Sherlock Holmes was alive and it didn't change very much.

_The world is better with you in it. _Oh, but he believed that. The thought made his chest ache, stirred feelings he hadn't been sure he'd had anymore. He remembered Sherlock Holmes, leaping into the air with excitement, stepping over their coffee table, brimming with intelligence and glory.

John sighed quietly, the hollow feeling in his stomach opening up at the memories. He had something different to mourn now. Sherlock Holmes was alive. But it didn't matter. Sherlock couldn't put him together again. He needed the arctic with its constant silence and promise of death awaiting him as soon as he stopped fighting to keep him alive.

He'd sit in 221B again, watching Sherlock Holmes in all his glory, take his gun out of its safe, walk down to the parking garage on Green Street, and blow out his brain from behind his teeth. Because he'd never be Sherlock Holmes' John Watson again. He never really had been.

_I'll drive you into town in the morning._

John felt his mouth pull down in a deep frown. He could not spend too much time with this man, couldn't fall in love with him again, before he left.

~~/~~

Sherlock stood outside the hut's front door and watched John load up the sled for a day's travel. He'd found a pair of extra fur gloves that kept the skin on his fingers from dying in the cold. The rest of his body he'd wrapped in John's blankets, the flexible hides of some large dead mammal he couldn't identify. The source of the hollow fur, he noted, watching it break off in the breeze and scatter over the snow. His feet sunk low into the snow beneath him. His toes stung badly. Frostbite was building up already and he'd barely been outside for ten minutes. This place was a constant barrage of cold.

John finished packing the sled and turned to look at him expectantly. Sherlock focused on his face, trying to look past the years of wind damage and frostbite and identify the emotion they showed now. Something had changed; John hadn't truly wanted him to acquiesce the night before, when he'd declared them leaving in the morning. That was no longer true. John's eyes were hard and cold, his posture stiff and unyielding. He had only packed Sherlock's belongings, none of his own. The red toolbox remained wherever John had lodged it.

Sherlock felt something nasty twist in his chest and jerked his gaze away, looking out at the sparse woods, the stumps from trees used to make the sod house, the scars of animal nawing on branch bark, the scratches of something large – a polar bear? Grizzly? - marking its home. There was nothing for them here. His brain would _rot _in such a place.

"Come back to London," Sherlock ordered. John's shoulders dropped, his posture sagging – relief? Resignation? – Sherlock couldn't tell, but the man had clearly expected the question.

"No," John replied shortly and started on harnessing the dogs, as if that was the end of the conversation. Sherlock frowned, recognizing the tone. Even Mycroft would give up on negotiating with the man, after John used that tone.

_Why would he stay here? _Sherlock looked around the place again.

_Maybe if I killed the dogs? _he wondered, but John would look at him differently after, would never forgive him for that either. Yet another crime. Sherlock grimaced. But he needed John. John huffed out a breath, sounding frustrated, and connected a thin rope tying the last two dogs' collars together. One dog started chewing on the rope. John bopped its frozen nose and the animal stopped.

How long could he stay in this place letting his brain waste away, waiting for John? There was nothing _here. _No cases, no crimes, no people. A breeze pushed past his coat hood and burned at his nose and eyes, though it was not cold enough to freeze them together.

_ Yet._

If the earth circled the sun in the way John described, the world would get very dark here. Already the sun never got very high in the sky; he'd seen that as he traveled through the dreadful land. This place could get worse.

_I cannot stay here forever._

"Why not?" Sherlock pressed, rubbing his hands over his arms to try and warm them. John glanced up from his work, his face red in the cold.

"Not a discussion," he said.

The dogs were barking and jerking on their lines again. John pulled out the long tow lines, his jaw clenching as he worked against the frozen rope. Sherlock didn't know what he was thinking, what he planned to do, but John wasn't packing up to leave with him.

_Angry, _Sherlock thought. He'd predicted that.

_I made him watch me die. _Sherlock had spent too many nights hunched over Moriarty's accountant papers and money trails, forcing himself not to think about that fact.

"I understand that you're angry -" Sherlock started but stopped, feeling fake. He only used that cajoling, kind tone with marks; people he needed something from who he'd leave as soon as he got it.

John cinched up the last yelping excited dog, a gray and tan beast that promptly started peeing on the snow beneath him.

"You don't understand anything that I am," John replied easily, as if commenting on the cold breeze around them.

"This place is hateful," Sherlock replied, rubbing at his face where ice was trying to form on his lips and eyelashes. John straightened and turned to look at Sherlock, his jaw set.

"Get in the sled," he ordered. Sherlock swallowed heavily, feeling as if his feet were encased in ice, holding him to the land beneath him. He couldn't step into that sled. Couldn't go anywhere without the man. John Watson was alive; he couldn't leave him. Not yet. "You owe me this, Sherlock," John ordered, his voice rough.

Sherlock tipped his head, acknowledging the point. That would be better. John had the right to choose, the right to refuse him.

But Sherlock couldn't leave him.

Sherlock glanced out at the open tundra, softly spotted with dormant shrubs and drifted snow. The silence made his ears ring, his brain playing tricks on him.

"Get in the bloody sled, Sherlock," John ordered. His voice cracked. Sherlock jerked his eyes back to stare at him. That wasn't like him. John glared back, looking ready to kill. Sherlock winced.

"I'm not leaving," he replied.

John advanced on him through the snow. His lead dog's hackles rose but the dog stayed where he was, apparently trained not to move without orders.

John stopped a few feet from Sherlock, his eyes wild.

"Why the bloody well not?" he shouted. The sound died quickly, even the light breeze carrying it away too sharply.

_I can't._

Sherlock stayed silent, unsure what to say. He didn't know why he'd stay. Sentiment, purely, but he'd never let it cloud his judgment before. Even his false suicide had been well calculated, painful and dangerous though it was. But this? He should get in the sled, get out of this place before his brain fell stagnant and pulled him apart. There was nothing here but John and John was only one man, nothing that could stand up next to his need for the work and win.

But he didn't get in the sled. An anomaly.

John clenched his fists in his thick gloves but didn't hit him. His eyes hardened horribly, something like fury in them. He turned and strode back to the sled, his back tall, and threw a metal box into the sled. It landed with a loud crack and John jumped onto the back of the dog sled, landing on the foot boards with ease.

"Hike," John ordered, his voice calm and angry and the lead dog shot forward, turning the sled fast enough to almost tip it and trip the team as he headed straight toward Sherlock. Sherlock stepped back rapidly, letting his back hit the door behind him, and the dog team thundered past.

~~/~~


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

John let the dogs run from trap to trap, his mind miles away.

There was nothing for Sherlock here. John closed his eyes as the dogs slid to yet another stop. He rested his elbows on the handle bar and hid his face in his hands.

_Damn it, Sherlock._

The man was waiting for him. A long dead friend, brought back to life. The genius Sherlock Holmes was in his world again. What had Sherlock been doing all this time? Having so summarily left without him. John sucked cold air into his lungs and released it, trying to keep his churning emotions at bay. How long would it take the man to discover what John already knew: that his John Watson wasn't coming back?

_Leave me to my life, _John wanted to growl, but he'd left the genius bastard back at his house. Gladstone yipped, a high-pitched strange sound from a dog that rarely made any noise at all. John looked up to see a terrified fox in his trap and the dogs straining against their harnesses to get to it, threatening to tip the sled if they tried too hard. Gladstone was standing stiffly, his claws digging into the snow, straining against his harness to keep the other dogs away. He wouldn't win for long.

"Oi!" John shouted, smacking his hand against the handle bar sharply. The dogs stopped pulling, their ears tipped back to listen to him. "Woah," he growled, leaning down to throw the snow claw onto the tough snow. He stamped it down until it held the sled firmly and stepped off the sled. Kimbo, the right wheel dog, turned to look at him, twisting his partner Moose in his harness and shoving him against the central line. Moose barked, sounding distinctly affronted, and the swing dogs Poodle and Riceball turned and started wandering back toward the sled to see what was going on, further tangling the tow line. Gladstone lay down in the snow, ignoring the tension on his harness, and watched John, flicking his tail with annoyance.

"Yes, I realize," John muttered, stepping toward the tangled dogs. His breath fogged in front of his face with the words. Gladstone sighed heavily and glanced at the fox in the trap John had nearly forgotten. A bear could have smelled the kill hours ago. They needed to leave. John glared at his lead dog and Gladstone's ears perked forward. He opened his mouth in an obvious grin. John untangled the wheel dogs, giving them each a scratch when they settled to standing and waiting for him. He pulled his gun and small field dressing knife from his belt and approached the fox.

He cleaned it quickly, his hands moving deftly, practiced at this now. He wiped his hands on the snow and wrapped the dead fox in the sled tarp. He had to reset the trap.

The arctic had a reassuring brutality to it. It would always go on.

John checked all of the dogs' harnesses and lines and pulled the iron claw from the snow before he climbed back onto the foot boards.

"Hike," he ordered.

~~/~~

Sherlock had never known how to wait. He tore through the dim little cabin, cataloging every item he found, putting together John Watson's life here.

Chisels, small saws, sanding blocks, hammers, pliers, yawn, wire, hooks, pins, needles, and extra bits of leather and rope. All stuffed in tow crates by the door, beneath the hooks for the used axes, ice picks, and large saws. Nets and yarn folded into a bin at the end of the mattress.

Next to the large metal stove he found an extensive first aid kit, fit into a light wooden box – designed to float and kept thawed by the stove heat. Antibiotics, painkillers, antiseptic wipes, sterile eye cups, eye wash, jell burn dressings, exam gloves, scissors, scalpels, needles, thread, splints, and bandages. Almost all of them used.

A difficult, painful life.

"Why?" Sherlock hissed, replacing the kit as he'd found it and striding the six steps across the bare floor to the kitchen he'd exploded the day before.

Pots, pans, giant knives, roasting forks, one four-man set of stainless steel cutlery. Canned fruit, canned vegetables, canned beans. Dry goods – flour, banking powder, rice, baking soda – all in small trashcans, tied closed, kept in the cabinets beneath the countertops. Vitamin pills, yeast, and the sealed sin of tea left on the countertop. A newspaper from almost a year before and flat sheets of cardboard were tucked between the countertop and the wall, riddled with holes from bugs and vermin. Mouse poop littered the corner there; clearly where John hadn't seen it – the rest of the floor was well swept.

A new suitcase full of fur and hide clothing, wool jumpers and plaid shirts – none of them matching his old wardrobe. A single toothbrush, less than a year old. A large collection of soap that from the smell of the kitchen tools and bedding was used for everything in the little home.

Nothing in the stove but ash and burning wood. Nothing in the cot. Sherlock settled into the kitchen chair to think.

No photographs. No momentos. Nothing from 221B. John had had a red toolbox he'd kept hidden in the frame of his bed. Sherlock had left it alone and John had never mentioned it, but the complaints against the invasion of his privacy had silenced. That one box, all the privacy the man had needed. Now, John Watson had all the privacy anyone could hope for, but that red toolbox was gone.

_In the rafters? _Sherlock wondered, staring up at the roof of the place where the stove pipe exited. John would have had to build it into the house, never planning to see it again. But that made more sense than him carrying it from Afghanistan to England and leaving it in 221B for the next tenants.

He heard the scraping of a sled against the snow drawing nearer. It had taken nearly ten minutes for John to unhitch it all the evening before.

Sherlock positioned himself at the kitchen table in his thinking pose and waited eleven minutes. John did not come inside. He looked outside, unwilling to leave the relative warmth of the house, only to see the dogs unhitched and eating.

Sherlock started the water for tea and chipped the ice from the bottom of the door frame.

John broke through the door two minutes later and strode into the kitchen, a dead fox in his hand. His feral dog rushed in behind him. John kicked the door closed and laid the fox over the kitchen table, its belly up. It was gutted already, its stomach and chest open and empty.

John turned then and took off his coat, hat and gloves and threw them toward the door. They landed in a crumpled heap. The dog whined and lay down beside the wet mess, looking rather disconcerted. Sherlock tented his fingers in front of his mouth, trying to look as if he were puzzling through some clues though he had none. John did not meet Sherlock's eyes, turned his back on him as if he were not in the room at all.

"You're angry with me," Sherlock guessed. John's shoulders relaxed, his head dipped: disappointed and resigned. The wrong answer and John didn't want to talk about it. "You wish I'd told you, brought you with me, included you."

_Risked you, _his brain filled in.

John glanced up, as if he'd never thought of that option. Sherlock frowned, watching the realization flutter over John's face, what he'd decided _not _to do.

"That would have risked Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade," John replied finally, pulling one of the largest blades from the single kitchen drawer and turning back to the carcass leaking over his kitchen table. Sherlock blinked, surprised by the agreement. John would have chosen to let himself mourn?

_Not for himself, _he noted.

"I had no idea that you would be so affected," Sherlock insisted.

John shook his head and leaned into the knife, helping it cut through the legs and pop them off. His large dog looked up, his ears perked forward, but John simply slid the mess to the side of his table and continued.

"I did," John replied, moving to grab a large pan from above the counter top. He set it above the stove and opened up the front trap. He paused, apparently surprised to find the fire crackling happily, and shut the stove drawer again. He slit the fur on the fox's back legs, working his knife carefully over the papery skin. He tugged at the fur and it ripped from the meat, sounding like Velcro releasing. "You'd have known, you know, if you had asked me," he added, leaning over the fox to cut more of the pelt away. The skin ripped off cleanly, down to the animal's head, revealing a lean carcass.

"That would have negated the point," Sherlock replied, frowning. He could not have walked up to John and asked if he'd isolate himself in the middle of the North American arctic at the first compelling evidence of his death, only to then fake his suicide and expect John to believe it.

John shrugged, his jaw tight.

"I'm not particularly bright. You've used that against me before," he replied, digging his knife into the fox's spine and severing the skinned head. Sherlock stayed quiet, unsure how to respond.

John cooked in silence, cutting the last of the skin from the fox and throwing the meaty carcass into a pan. He pulled the animal off of the heat when it was safe to eat and cut it apart with a fresh knife. He left the knives and carcass on the kitchen counter top and handed Sherlock a plate without a word. Sherlock sat on the cot, unsure where else to go. He ate the fresh, fatty meat, unsure what else to do. It tasted rather like rabbit, but its meat was thicker. They ate in silence, so very different from the way it'd been sitting across from each other in Baker Street. Something twisted in Sherlock's stomach at the thought and he ignored it. The bottom of the table was smooth where it had been sanded with increasing grits. Sherlock ran his finger over the bottom surface, over the legs and joints, feeling the same degree of workmanship, beyond what was necessary. It was unlike the rest of the sod home, so very utilitarian. He'd missed that detail. Every wooden surface in the home was sanded smooth, where a man had stood and performed the same mindless action over and over until the wood submitted.

_He suffered. _

John took his plate and stacked it on the kitchen counter with his own before throwing the old scraps to the hopeful malamute. He set up a large pot of water heating on the stove. Sherlock watched him curiously; the man wasn't making tea – the mug was still dirty from the night before and John made no move to clean it. Instead, John grabbed the fox pelt off of the table and started back toward the stove. He brushed water onto the exposed skin of the pelt, cupping it out of the stove water with his hand, and let the bloody water drip onto the floor as he walked to the slop pot beside the door. He squeezed the water and blood out of the skin and laid the fur back over the floor, never meeting Sherlock's eyes.

Sherlock lay down on the cot and listened to animals rustle through the sod above them. Frost had slowly built over the window, forming a thin layer inside. It was cold inside the hut. His fingers hurt but John moved as if he didn't notice it at all. He wore only his jeans and a plaid shirt but wiped his wet fingers on his pants as if he didn't mind that the water would freeze against his skin. Sherlock layered himself with John's blankets and toed off his boots, deciding to pretend to sleep. There was nothing else to do. John layered the fur over a piece of cardboard and a second, finished pelt, and started scraping down the flesh with a sharp blade. The flesh looked thin and papery beneath the blade, but John never damaged it. He moved with the surety of long practice, his jaw set and his eyes focused; unwilling to think about anything else, perhaps.

John sighed occasionally, his breathing deep and heavy, and Sherlock felt his brain racing, trying to pull meaning from the sound when there wasn't anything to find. He never could guess what John Watson was thinking. Late into the night, when the fur was clean and dry and rubbed with a white paste, John crawled across the floor and slipped in beside him. Sherlock struggled to keep his muscles from tensing. He'd tried to fantasize about this too often, tried to let his brain drag him down pleasurable idiocies, in which John Watson would roll over, drag his body up against his own, go further - but he could never get past the paradox of John Watson doing things to him that John Watson wouldn't do. A man in John Watson's body was useless, meaningless. The fantasy always fell apart too quickly. Indeed, John's body was relaxed and unaffected as ever as it slid beneath the heavy furs and brushed against him.

Sherlock grimaced and stared up at the ceiling, his brain jerked fully awake. John would not appreciate him moving now and there was nothing to do in the hateful little room. He decided to organize all the world's city names by alphabetical order, and wondered if Donetsk, Ukraine should count as one city or two.

~~/~~


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

John woke up the next morning while Sherlock was plotting the optimum route between every building in London, based on the public transportation options of 1887. John had worn his clothing to bed and he pulled on his tall skin boots without changing. Sherlock watched him cut away at the ice in front of the door and sat up to pull on his own boots. John glanced at him and started pulling on his own outdoor clothing, his hands moving faster. He grabbed the saw, a bucket, and the slop pail from the front of the house. Sherlock hesitated, unsure of his welcome, and John yanked the door open and pushed his way into the snow. He pulled the door closed behind him, his face blank. Sherlock rushed to follow, stuffing himself in his insufficient coat and gloves.

John was easy to spot, black and tan against the dim gray of the outside. Sherlock squinted through the darkness and started to jog, ignoring the barks of the dogs behind him. John was standing on the river and sawing through the ice. Sherlock caught up with him quietly. The ice around John's saw was dark blue, almost black. An old hole, iced over. John broke through and water boiled up into the hole he'd made, quickly breaking through the rest of the thin ice. John leaned down with his bucket and started hauling out water, careful not to wet his gloves. Sherlock watched him fill the buckets and empty out the slop pail and followed him back to the house, noting John's steady practiced motions. He did this every morning, Sherlock thought, and yet there was no sign of a trail in the snow. There was too much wind, too much fresh snow here. Tracks had to be new or they'd not exist at all.

John left the water inside the door, hitched up the dogs, and stepped onto the sled without looking at Sherlock at all. He set them running forward and disappeared around the willow grove beside the hut. Sherlock stepped back into the home, the only refuge from the weather for as far as he could see.

John returned that night with a hunk of frozen meat in his fist – the left thigh of a starving mammal, Sherlock identified immediately, his whirling mind desperate for new data. It was a herbivore, judging from the hoofed feet, but not the source of the hollow fur. More importantly, it was enough meat for two – the only concession to Sherlock's presence he'd made yet. John rubbed the meat with pepper and salt and threw it into a pot of water to boil. Sherlock winced but didn't comment.

John cooked and they ate, and Sherlock decided that he'd never hated a place more.

"Mrs. Hudson had surgery on her hip. It's doing better," Sherlock commented finally, wanting to break the silence. John didn't look up from where he was combing out the fur of the fox pelt, cleaning it thoroughly. Sherlock ran his hand over the smooth table top, uncomfortable.

He could mention that it was the money from his will that'd paid for it. He wondered if he should have said it. John hadn't acted like he'd heard him speak at all, except for the quiet tensing of his shoulders. Surely John could guess that detail on his own. John had inherited the vast majority of his estate, after all. Sherlock could never guess what details a common mind would deduce and which it'd miss entirely. Still, John's mind he knew better. He thought John would guess that Mrs. Hudson had been in his will.

"Have you told her?" John asked. Sherlock's mind whirled. Told her what? Too many options. That it was his money she'd used for her own surgery? John didn't think Mrs. Hudson daft.

There were hundreds of other informative secrets he'd kept from the woman, things she'd certainly want to know. The cocaine he'd mixed with gelatin and sculpted into an ear bone collection? That was likely still stuffed into the central air vent. She would want to know that most of all, he thought. Surely she'd guessed that he was still alive. He would have left his drug supply on the kitchen table, clearly. He'd promised to do that before he moved out. Mycroft had said she'd gone through his experiments, getting rid of most of it; she'd notice that there were no drugs to be found. She'd know.

"That you're alive," John clarified, his voice steady. Sherlock blinked at him. John thought he'd go to Mrs. Hudson first? Daft. But then, Mrs. Hudson likely did know already. He likely shouldn't mention that.

"No," Sherlock replied. John sipped at the tea beside him, apparently done talking already. Sherlock tipped his head back to rest it on the angled ceiling behind him. He was almost finished calculating all the driving paths through Beirut, attempting to avoid every ATM and known security camera.

Sherlock watched him empty out the stove ash into the slop bucket and scowled. Emotions boiled up in him, disrupting every thought he had, until he was only processing the Beirut driving routes in bits – left onto Clemenceau .9 mile drive next to the highway – the back of John's shirt slid over the muscles on his back and Sherlock yearned to reach for him, to run his fingers into his hair, to feel those muscles shift beneath his hands – Left onto Omar Daouk, that would become Bab Idriss and end at the T intersection in only 400 feet – John brushed the last of the dust from the stove and it clouded, covering his shirt- he had to keep this man safe, had to keep him secure– no that would kill him. John needed action – or he had done_ – _Riad el Sohl would bring them to Amir Bachir, where the Mohammad Al–Amin Mosque was situated – by all evidence John wanted nothing but his anger now. He wouldn't even _look _at him; how was Sherlock to fix this when John could so effectively pretend he didn't exist at all? Sherlock scrubbed his hands through his hair and flipped himself back in his chair, careful not to hit the ceiling behind him.

John stood and started to dress to bring the slop pot outside. Unusual, for a man who lived by routine and always took it out in the morning. Ah – he had to use the outhouse – apparently he wasn't willing to use the slop pot for that like he usually did, Sherlock noted, pleased. A second concession for his presence.

"John," Sherlock called but John didn't pause. "I -". Emotions roiled in his stomach, mixing regret in with his fear. "I should have brought you with me." Clearly. Surely that didn't need to be said, but Sherlock could never predict what a common mind would deduce on its own.

John's jaw clamped shut and he started chipping the ice away from the door. He didn't want an apology, then. It'd take him three minutes to leave, Sherlock knew.

_Make him angry? _Sherlock wondered, peering around the home. There wasn't much he could destroy without potentially risking the tools John was using to keep them alive. And he'd already ransacked the kitchen.

_Ah! _Sherlock threw his head back and cracked it against the ceiling behind him. John's shoulders tensed at the sound, clearly recognizing it. John turned to face him, revulsion in his eyes. Sherlock froze. John was visibly angry now – an improvement? No – his eyes were focused, his lips pinched – his usual expression when staring down an enemy. Sherlock could imagine the man pulling his SIG out of his hip holster and shooting him right there. He felt interest flicker through him but John turned, looking only more exhausted as he continued chipping the ice away from the door.

_What does he want from me?_

Sherlock wished for his violin and moved to stand by the window. Snow whisked past, lifted by the wind, blocking most of his sight. John left. The day came and went with little to mark its passing. The sun rose orange over the mountains and dipped beneath them only hours later.

Sherlock walked with John to the river every morning, wrapped head to toe in clothing and freezing despite it. Every morning John cut a new hole in the river ice and filled his clean buckets before emptying his slop. He never asked for Sherlock's help and ignored his offers. He ignored everything Sherlock did.

Sherlock learned the footprints of a dozen animals he'd never see in London. He learned how to navigate around the barren land by the small crop of trees across the river and the snowy hill beside the sod home. Utterly useless knowledge, when they left this place.

The only concessions to his presence Sherlock could identify were that John always cooked enough food for two men and he always used the outhouse. So Sherlock always ate. They spent the nights listening to the rustling vermin and the shuddering of the plastic window and the lead dog's occasional growls. Sherlock's brain rebelled, catching on every detail of the white tundra around them, searching desperately for a puzzle that wasn't there. He calculated why every speck of snow was out of place from where it'd been before, reading wind speeds and the slowly dipping temperature. But none of it _mattered_; there was no case to solve, no context to make the wind speed data vital, make his brain whirl with power. He was lying stagnant, his brain dying, and John continued to haul water, fix the nets, check the traps, and warm up frozen meat, as if Sherlock was not alive at all.

Ten days in John brought another fox home from his traps. It was frozen solid and he let it thaw out by the stove before he gutted it.

"Where were you then?" he asked as he carefully removed the bowels and threw the intestines to Gladstone, sleeping in his place by the stove. "Three years," he clarified. Sherlock stared at him a moment, trying to process what had changed, but the man showed no visible difference. He hadn't even changed his clothing yet.

"Germany, Sweden, Cuba. Beirut for a short time. It was paperwork and legal papers, the worst of cases. But the network is dismantled; it's money stripped and its bank accounts seized in every country," Sherlock answered. John nodded quietly and returned to his work, the moment apparently gone.

Sixteen days in, John brought a caribou home in his sled. Its stomach was open and empty, already gutted. He let it thaw by the stove, taking up most of the house, before he dragged it back outside. Sherlock watched out of the window as he tied a rope to its neck and hauled it up into the closest tree.

_The guts would spoil the meat. He must clean it in the field, _Sherlock thought, wondering why the man did not skin it there as well. Too few trees to hang it where it'd been killed?

Sherlock did not know the area well enough to say and John never answered such questions. Sherlock pulled on the heavy uncomfortable layers that allowed him to leave the house. He shoved the heavy door open just in time to hear the ripping, sharp sound of the last of the pelt pulled from the carcass. The black lead dog looked up from his frozen fish and growled, standing up slowly, his eyes focused on Sherlock's face. Sherlock frowned, watching John drop the pelt to the ground, its fur down in the snow.

"Gladstone. Settle," John ordered, not bothering to look behind him and Sherlock knew the man had heard him. The lead dog lay down obediently but ignored the fish between its paws, its gaze unmoving. John untied the carcass and pulled it into his arms before turning and walking toward Sherlock, apparently unfazed by the blood and exposed muscle. His lead dog –Gladstone, Sherlock noted idly - snatched up the small fish between its jaws and followed him. Sherlock stepped out of the way, wary of the malamute.

_What am I doing here? _he wondered, watching John's arms strain beneath the weight of the carcass. Sherlock knew he was not built for hard labor. He did not have the proper clothing to live in the arctic. Even as he stood there his eyebrows and eyelashes started to build up small icicles. His fingers burned in his leather gloves, threatening to boil and peel with frostbite.

John did not want him here. He had to accept it. John was a different man now. The thought made his stomach twist badly. It was not like Sherlock to stand in the snow and do nothing when there were murderers and kidnappers running loose, creating puzzles throughout London. But that was John's nature now. Sherlock could not have both. Sherlock pulled the door open for him. John walked past him. Sherlock wondered how long he could wait in this stagnant place.

And what he was waiting for.

Gladstone sidled away from him, keeping his distance until the last minute when the dog could sprint through the door. Sherlock followed them inside and closed the door.

John lowered the carcass to the kitchen table and headed back outside, passing him without a word. Sherlock examined the tiny frozen crystals of blood already hanging from the caribou meat, starting to melt onto the kitchen table. He didn't know how long the animal had been dead; he didn't know how quickly anything would freeze in temperatures so far below zero. There had never been any need to experiment.

The black lead dog lay down by the stove and crunched through his fish, sending tiny shards of ice skittering over the floor.

Sherlock stayed where he was by the kitchen cabinets, thinking it wisest not to make any sudden movements around the beast while John was gone. John returned, the large pelt and sled tarp in his hands and kicked the door shut behind him. He left the tarp and the pelt on the floor, effectively covering the rest of the floor space between them and the door, and grabbed a piece of cardboard from the kitchen. Sherlock slid onto the cot, the only place available to sit with the carcass covering the kitchen table and dripping onto the chair. Still, this was the hair that was scattered over every surface of the home and showed up in their food and the skin that made up the mattress and insulated the door. Caribou, then. Sherlock sighed, frustrated with how long that answer had eluded him.

"You suffered," Sherlock stated, watching John pull a silvery fur hide off the bed and lay it on the ground, only to pull the cardboard and new, meaty hide on top of it. John was a different man. The thought sent something hard and sharp pinching in his gut. John grabbed a rounded hand knife from the crate of tools by the door, his hand finding it easily, and started scraping at the caribou hide, ripping the last of the muscle and sinew from the skin.

John, predictably, did nothing but raise his eyebrows, a gesture Sherlock was coming to understand as a simple 'yes'.

Sherlock swallowed.

"Why do you want me gone?" he asked. Even he could hear his tone had shifted; quieter, plaintive. He'd leave if John Watson told him to now. John let the knife falter in his hands. His grip on the pelt softened and he looked up, his hard face wary.

Sherlock braced himself to hear the final words _I'll drive you into town in the morning. _John didn't reply. He seemed lost in thought, listening to the wind outside shake the plastic window. Sherlock wondered what he was considering. The man had made it clear he wanted him gone. Truly wanted it without any deception. What more was there to consider?

_Why do you want me gone? _his question hung in the air. John went back to his scraping but Sherlock knew not to interrupt. The conversation wasn't over.

It was after their dinner of boiled caribou shoulder when John spoke again. Smoke filled the room from the stove, dissipating slowly through the small chimney, leaving behind its greasy film. John was occupied rubbing sourdough over the large hide.

"I am a different man than before you died," he stated. He didn't look up from his work; didn't expect a response. He knew Sherlock had finally come to that realization on his own.

_Why? _That Sherlock still did not understand.

"I will not return to London with you," John stated, his mouth pinched in that way of warning not to press; he would not answer. Sherlock watched as the man worked the sourdough into the skin with his fingers, wanting to tear a reaction out of the man.

"I will not stand in 221B and make tea and watch you, waiting to be useful," John continued, his voice worn thin where it should have voiced anger. Resignation, Sherlock identified. Past grief, the emotion hollowed out of it by too much time.

_Why not? _Sherlock wondered anyway and felt his tired, numbed brain finally find traction in the puzzle. John had loved London, loved running through the streets with him, courting danger and solving puzzles. Yes, he'd mourned, he'd suffered, but why would he not return? Who was this new John that hunted caribou but would not join him? He knew John would not answer. John had never been a particularly vocal man. Sherlock had liked that about him once.

John folded the skin, fur out, and shoved it under the mattress to soften, opposite of where Sherlock sat. That was his answer, then? John wanted Sherlock gone because John would not make tea in 221B? But they were not in 221B, clearly, and he didn't need tea. Sherlock felt something sharp twinge in his stomach again. He had to think and he was not skilled at considering emotions.

"I'll drive you into town in the morning," John stated, turning down the lamp. The room was almost pitch black, lit only by the glow of the coals through the ventilation grate in the stove. Sherlock felt his breath catch, but something in John's tone was different – resigned now. Resigned to what?

_ I am a different man._

_ I will not stand and make tea and watch you, waiting to be useful. _Sherlock frowned.

Why not?

John climbed over the tarp and silver hide and pulled himself into the cot. Sherlock sidled over quickly and leaned his back against the wall, giving him room. John lay down and pulled the heavy furs over his chest. He clasped his hands on his stomach and closed his eyes, as if simply waiting for the nightmares to hit, as he'd done every night, back to the first evening he'd stayed at 221B.

Sherlock inhaled rapidly, almost choking. Would he leave John here? Go back to London without him?

"The snow will be like sand tomorrow. It's been too cold. We'll have to take the trip over two days," he said.

Sherlock pulled himself down beside the man, grateful to slide into the warmth beneath the covers. John's body was as relaxed as ever and Sherlock struggled to keep his hands from tensing into fists at the way lust jerked through him, tugging at his stomach.

This wasn't the John Watson he knew. And Sherlock hated this empty place. Sherlock grimaced.

_ Why won't you come back with me?_

"That won't be necessary," he stated. John didn't respond, as always, but his muscles relaxed into the hide mattress. Relief or resignation? Sherlock couldn't tell.

Sherlock stayed silent and returned to calculating the rate at which different land animals would die from the pressure when slowly submerged into the Atlantic. Tortoises were doing the best by far.

~~/~~


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Please please review if you like it? **

Chapter 4

John woke up the next morning to a heavy bladder and a shrew climbing over his face. He swatted the vermin away and pulled himself out of the pile of fur, cracking away ice where the hair had frozen around the edges. He built up a fire and put the cannibal pot above the stove – a mixed slop of meat and gravy left over from the night before. It'd frozen into a heavy block, the grease risen to the top and prickly with ice.

He threw on his parka and hat and pushed his way outside to start digging out the door. The morning air caught in his face and throat and burned in his lungs, but the outhouse was not far from the house; it rarely got warm enough to smell even in the summer months. He shoved his way inside and tugged at his clothing, working quickly to relieve himself before his extremities froze in the sharp air.

He returned to the house to find Sherlock peering into the cannibal pot, a fork at the ready. John smiled softly and stripped off his parka and gloves. The caribou carcass was frozen to the table, the edges of it crystallized with damaged meat. John banged the snow out of his mukluks and overpants and washed his hands in the bucket of water left over from the day before. He cut the frozen edges off the caribou meat and threw it into the cannibal pot for their breakfast, compensating for Sherlock's obvious hunger.

_He won't stay long, _John reminded himself, cutting down the backstrap of the caribou, peeling off the sinew. He'd peel it into thread after it dried. The rest of the carcass he heaved onto his shoulder and brought outside to bury with the rest of his winter cache. The bones were thick with flesh and fat. It was a good kill and an even better pelt. It'd help him get through the winter after Sherlock ate through his frozen stores and left.

John shoveled out his pile of frozen caribou, relishing the time alone. The air felt thinner, easier to breathe without company. Even Sherlock's.

He didn't know what he wanted. He knew he wasn't going to mention going into town today. He didn't want Sherlock to leave him. But he was equally uncomfortable with the idea of the man staying. Sherlock had nothing but him here. Sherlock was waiting for him and John could already feel the tension building up in his back, expectations for him to be someone he couldn't be anymore. He could barely look at Sherlock without feeling the constant hollowness in his gut threaten to open up and consume him. He couldn't meet those striking blue eyes without wincing. They made him picture a head wound bleeding over the concrete.

He'd wanted Sherlock gone so very badly, the first days, wanted his solace back. Old wounds were threatening to tear open and it'd be so very easy to step into his freezing water hole, where he wouldn't be able to climb out again.

The dogs barked, alerting him. John turned around to see Sherlock standing in the doorway to his igloo, his torso wrapped in the silvery lynx hide. John tore his eyes away and dragged his new carcass into the underground cache of caribou meat. He started shoveling snow back onto the wooden structure, aware of Sherlock watching him.

_Why are you here?_

Sherlock stayed all day, hiding from the cold, but still John felt his gaze as he cleared the house door, sharpened the saws, and hitched up the sled to check the traps again.

~~/~~

The sun stopped breaking the horizon. Sherlock did not leave. The aurora lights wavered across the sky, too weak to light their way in the almost constant darkness. John cut and sewed the fox pelt into liners for Sherlock's gloves and turned the caribou skin into mukluks – tall skin boots that kept the cold at bay. Sherlock joined him the next day, following him to the back of the house. John stayed aware of him, careful as he cut down the dead willow tree threatening to fall on his roof. He examined the fallen tree for worm-eaten wood, his brain ruminating on a question he'd not been able to fathom.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked finally, starting on chopping the dead trunk into pieces. The wood was frozen through, it's sap splintery and too cold to be sticky. John caught Sherlock's shell shocked expression and smiled grimly, realizing it was the first question he'd asked since that late night almost a month before – '_and this was the only solution that came to you?'._

"Sorry, what?" Sherlock replied dumbly, still looking baffled. John shrugged, beating his ax into the notch he'd made.

"It's not like you to go so long without a puzzle," John stated, his words flowing freer now. Sherlock blinked rapidly.

"I'm calculating the effect of increased body fat content on the death of submerged land animals," he blurted out. "Nitrogen is five times more soluble in fat than water so body fat greatly increases the effect of decompression sickness. Most animals would die before pressure ever had an effect." John blinked, processing the statement, and had to suppress a laugh. Gladstone looked up from where he lay beside the woodpile, escaping the wind. Sherlock glanced at the dog, looking rather chagrined by his outburst.

_He is bored, _John confirmed, breaking through the back bark of the trunk and separating his first bit of log. He sidestepped, centering himself over his next cut, and started hacking at the frozen bark. There wasn't much he could do for a man with Sherlock's captivating brain, left alone on the tundra. He'd leave soon, John thought.

The thought didn't strike him with relief as he'd expected. John grimaced, imagining the next isolated winter without Sherlock Holmes standing beside him, keeping him company without any expectations of conversation. He'd miss filling the dinner pot up with food for two and passing his mug back and forth over the kitchen table. He'd miss the quiet company, the reminder that Sherlock Holmes still existed in his world.

_Damn it. _John slammed the axe into the hard wood, letting the force jar his bones. It'd be a long winter.

"Pets and commercially eaten farm animals do particularly badly," Sherlock added quietly. John chuckled aloud and glanced up, to see Sherlock watching him, his gaze full of wonder.

_Why are you staying here for me? _John wondered, basking in it for a moment.

"Here, chop this into small logs for firewood. We'll bring them inside to thaw before we try to chop them any further. I'll go check the traps," John suggested, offering Sherlock the axe handle. Sherlock took it, his blue eyes darting over John's face.

John started toward the dogsled, doing his best to pretend nothing had changed. He could feel Sherlock watching him, but before he could get to the dogsled he heard the telltale _whack _of a sharp axe hitting frozen wood.

John squatted down beside his dogs and started pulling the stiff harnesses into dog shapes. Poodle and Riceball climbed over him, licking his face and getting in the way. John petted them idly, watching Sherlock Holmes heaving an axe without complaint, bundled into a caribou blanket, ox lined gloves, and caribou mukluks.

_How did we get here? _John wondered, tugging off his glove and rubbing it over his freezing cheeks. Sherlock kept pounding at the log. John turned his attention back to the dogs.

~~/~~

January was the coldest month of the year and it blew in with fervor. The window froze thick enough to stop rattling in the storm winds. They started melting snow. The river ice would freeze in its bucket before they got it back to the kitchen. They found a wolf half frozen into the river ice where it'd fallen through their water hole and failed to climb out. The surviving pelt was cut and sewn into a ruff for a proper caribou parka that fit Sherlock's lanky frame. John added a nail in the row by the door and did not mention it.

John finished breaking up the log the week after the nail went in. He left enough wood to saw into the frame of a new chair and started toward the house, bringing an armful of kindling with him, only to stop short just inside the door, blinking rapidly. Sherlock stood on the kitchen table, his head up through the rafters, breaking into the sod insulation. John hesitated, the freshly chopped wood in his arms.

"What-" he started and Sherlock crouched back down, sending an avalanche of dust, dried sod, and animal droppings over the table, mattress, and chair. "You almost certainly have shite in your hair," John commented, walking over to the stove, trying to ignore the fact that Sherlock must have found his red photo box.

_He's never opened it, _John reminded himself. That boundary had been well established between them years before, albeit silently. Most people would think him mad to trust Sherlock with his privacy but Sherlock did make an effort to live with him well, even if no one else saw it.

"I found the yeast," Sherlock declared, holding up the small jar between his fingers. "The stove smoke keeps in warm enough," he added. "Once I realized there was only one reason you kept flour and baking powder in the kitchen, the deduction was obvious."

John paused and dumped his armful of wood on the existing pile.

"You are horribly bored," he commented. Sherlock groaned loudly, scrubbing his hands through his hair and letting himself drop off the table like a trust fall, onto their mattress, still clinging to the jar of yeast.

"Bored, John!" he shouted.

John smiled, relieved at the sound. He had Sherlock Holmes again.

The next morning he woke up to the smell of freshly baking bread, and quickly decided that Sherlock was actually much easier to live with when horrendously bored.

He changed that assessment that evening, when he found Sherlock taking scrapings of animal droppings off the floor and squishing them at different intervals away from the stove. To test different viscosity levels by temperature, presumably, but John only saw the layer of animal scat pressed in a thin sheet beside his mattress and table, where he skinned carcasses for food. Sherlock looked up and started cleaning up the mess without a word.

~~/~~

It was barely two weeks later, after the warm night where the snow fell sticky, that Sherlock saw the bear tracks wandering around the caribou meat cache. John hesitated at his side; he'd seen them too. The tracks were unmarred, the edges crisp.

"Those can't be more than six hours old," Sherlock stated, remembering when the snow had stopped falling the night before. The tracks were pressed into the snow three centimeters in at the heel of the paw print. The fingers were wide and as long as Sherlock's, tipped with holes in the snow crust where the claws had dug into the snow to climb over the meat pile.

"We're lucky," John commented, squatting by the tracks and running a finger through one. The track stayed almost unmarred; the snow was frozen hard, refusing to push out of his path. It'd had time to freeze over in the morning chill.

"And at least two hours old," Sherlock stated, grateful now for the days he'd spent in the snow, making markings and watching them change with the shifting wind, temperature, and humidity of the arctic winter. John looked up at him and opened his mouth, as if to ask how Sherlock had known, though he'd clearly figured out the timing himself. Still, he looked impressed and Sherlock basked in it, pleasure pouring through him. John glanced away, blinking as if he'd caught the reflection of the sun in his eyes.

"She should be hibernating. She's most likely starving, sick, or rabid," John stated, putting the buckets down and walking back toward the house.

The dogs were acting nervously, standing on three feet and licking their chops repeatedly. They whined and yelped, sniffing the air and each other repeatedly. John returned from the house, a shotgun in his hands. His body language was different – stiff and alert – what Sherlock used to think of as the man at attention but that training had faded into something more natural now. John hefted the gun over his shoulder and picked up the slop bucket, leaving the clean one and the ice chisel for Sherlock. He strode over to the dogs and ignored their excited barking and jumping, leaning over the right wheel dog to release Gladstone's collar. The black dog leaped out of the pile of chained malamutes, its tail wagging wildly, apparently picking up on the energy in the air.

"Gladstone heel," John ordered firmly, his gaze stretching out over the white tundra to where the bear's footprints disappeared, swept away by moving snow. The lead dog obeyed immediately, setting itself directly beside John, its playful attitude gone. Sherlock picked up the water pail and chisel and led the way to their water hole.

"She?" he asked quietly, surprised by John's identification of the bear. John kept up his constant survey of their surroundings.

"Those were small tracks for a grizzly, and they didn't sink deep into the packed snow," he replied, his voice pitched normally.

"Not a brown bear?" Sherlock asked, interested by John's certainty. John shook his head, his mouth pinching with worry.

"Toes and claws were wrong. I'll teach you later," he promised, and kept an eye out over the river while Sherlock broke the ice building at the top of their water hole.

John didn't go anywhere without Gladstone and Sherlock at his side after that morning. Even the tiresome, time-consuming trek into the outhouse became a two man trip. Sherlock pretended to mind, sulking on the mattress for hours when he knew John was not in the mood to talk, but he relished the hours with John shut away in the sod house. John had lifted his traps and left them in the sled, silently declaring the trapping season suspended. He cut and sewed the fox pelt into cuffs for Sherlock's coat and put his flesh scraping tools away.

John spent the time sawing and chiseling a willow slab into a second kitchen chair and Sherlock dutifully pretended he didn't know what it was. Sherlock spent his time watching John, relearning every facial tick and muscle movement that could give his emotions away. Sherlock related old cases, fighting back the urge to smile madly every time John frowned with curiosity, trying to figure out the puzzle. Sherlock left the answer out for as long as possible, letting days pass, basking in John's irritable grumbles and uninspired guesses, waiting for the moment when he could reveal the answer and see admiration bloom in the reticent man's eyes. He thought he could spend a decade in this icy place without complaining, when John looked at him that way, after so much absence.

Sometimes it became so silent that they could hear the footsteps of the caribou clustered on the opposite shore of the river. The days were so cold a fog of warm air rose up around the animals and a frozen carcass brought inside would steam in the heated air.

One day Sherlock knocked all the cans off the shelf of dried goods, just to hear them clatter and slam against the ground. John flinched at the sudden sound and escaped outside with Gladstone, though he stayed in front of the window, always mindful of the wandering bear. Sherlock memorized his tense shoulders and clamped jaw, thinking perhaps John would never return to London with him. He put the cans back exactly where they'd been and John didn't mention it when he returned inside.

Sherlock could tell the temperature outside by the border of frost that'd stretch its web over the Visqueen window. The depth of the frost correlated quite strictly with the temperature and humidity outside. He could tell the external conditions to a degree of precision, though he had to mentally convert the thermometer's readout to Celsius to check his results. They were likely in American territory, then, though the Fahrenheit thermometer was the only way Sherlock could tell.

It was negative forty seven when they woke up to the rumble of an engine approaching. It was pitch black outside. Sherlock could only make out the window frost by the flickering red glow of the banked stove.

_Snowmobile, _Sherlock identified, remembering the sound. John pulled himself out of their bed and added logs to the stove. He dressed for going out and Sherlock stood up from the mattress to follow suit. John shook his head slightly.

_Doesn't want to do introductions outside, _Sherlock thought, glancing at the wide crust of frost on the window. John set the cannibal pot on the stove, heating up the remains of their dinner and pulled on his gloves. He jerked open the door just as the roaring engine cut out. The dogs outside barked almost in sequence. Gladstone didn't even lift his head from where he lay by the stove, unconcerned with the engine.

Sherlock wandered around the home. The visitor was almost certain to be an idiot – the majority of people were – but still he wanted to find out for himself. He relished the idea of anything new to see in this frozen place. He lit the kerosene lamp and hung it from its nail on the ridgepole, casting orange light and the thin smell of petroleum over the room.

John pushed his way inside, a frozen liter of coca cola in his hand. He glanced at the lip lamp on his way inside from the night and nodded approvingly. A man wrapped in caribou and wolf fur followed him inside and shut the door, chipping at the ice with the back of his hand to close it. They shook the snow off of their clothing and hung their parkas up to dry. John scooped the clumped snow from the floor into the slop pot with his bare hands, leaving his back to the newcomer. A friend, then.

The stranger had the brown skin, round face, and wide flat nose of a native Inupiaq. His face and hands were calloused and dark, damaged from years freezing and thawing. Sherlock could not determine an exact age for the man, given the harsh climate's premature aging. The wrinkles around his eyes were pronounced but his gait was strong. He spotted Sherlock finally and jerked in surprise – a healthy response time. The newcomer squinted at him as if doubting his eyes – surprise or ill-sighted? Difficult to determine.

"When you come?" the man asked, his voice deep and loud in the room. A foreign English speaker, Sherlock noted. The man glanced around the room as if looking for clues there and walked toward him into the kitchen, apparently forgetting his own question.

"After the river froze too thick for ice fishing," John answered for him, shoving another log into the fire. "When was that? Late October?" he asked. The Inupiaq man frowned and paused by the kitchen table, thinking. He lived nearby, Sherlock noted. He must, to have an answer to something so subjective.

"November," Sherlock answered them. They'd missed Christmas; John hadn't seemed to notice. The Inupiaq man glanced at him, looking rather affronted. He settled into the kitchen chair with a pained groaned and rubbed his knee – sore, not frostbite, or he'd angle it closer to the fire. Sherlock held out his hand over the kitchen table. "Sherlock Holmes," he introduced. The man shook his hand, huffing out a derisive breath as he released it.

"Naluagmiu," he laughed, his mouth gaping. He had few teeth left and they weren't lined up. He'd have to live on minced meat and fish out here.

_He does not recognize my name, _Sherlock noted, peering at the man's mocking expression. John had not spoken about him. Perhaps that was not so surprising. The more Sherlock saw the more he thought John had barely spoken at all since he'd jumped.

"Yes. Like me," John commented quietly, defensive. He pushed a wooden spoon into the heating cannibal pot.

_Naluagmiu is not his name, then. _An insult, a trait he shared with John. 'White man'? 'British?'

The Inupiaq man glanced at Sherlock, curiosity in his eyes.

"He also always catch?" the man asked, his eyebrows high as if that were an impossibility. Sherlock smiled to himself, enjoying the feeling of being baffled when his brain had churned so long, utterly stagnant.

John didn't answer and the Inupiaq stared at Sherlock, taking him in. Sherlock took that as permission to stare back. The man had dog fur in his clothes and callouses in the same place John did over his palms, from where his hands gripped the frozen sled handle bar. He owned a dog sled – a rarity even out here. His corduroy pants had the ridges worn out at the knees and inner thighs. His shirt was plaid like John's but significantly older, worn thin at the cuffs and mended at the armpits. He sucked at his teeth, not looking impressed by what he saw in Sherlock's face and thin frame. Gladstone rumbled out a quiet growl, not moving from his place between John's feet and the stove. Sherlock glanced down and smirked, surprised to see the temperamental dog glaring at someone else for once. The Inupiaq grinned, flashing his two front teeth. His gums were worn down, thin bumps slipping over his jaw bone.

"Dawgs not like some kinnaq," he said and grinned as if that was the end of it. He spoke English too far back in his throat. "My name is Iqniq," He smiled at Sherlock, almost friendly now, as if he expected Sherlock to understand that exchange. Sherlock frowned, still baffled, and John moved to lean against the counter beside him, his arms crossed over his chest.

"There's a bear nearby. Saw its tracks last week after the warm day," he said, his voice questioning. Iqniq pinched his thin lips together.

"You cover caribou and fish?" he asked. John shook his head.

"The fish is in a pole cache, lifted up a foot," he answered. Iqniq frowned.

"Tomorrow we bury," he replied. John nodded, not protesting the order in his home, where he would have glanced at Mycroft, annoyed and dismissive.

This was probably the man who'd taught him to survive in the tundra. Sherlock resumed his inspection of the man, more interested now. Did he owe this man for John's life? Or did he blame him for allowing John to disappear into a life here?

"Wind blow plen'y hard yesterday," he stated. John nodded and the house was quiet again. Perhaps it was common in the arctic to be so quiet even after a visitor's entrance.

Iqniq ate noisily, slopping up the caribou gravy and gumming at the tough meat for an age. John pulled half of the pelts off of the mattress and spread them over the frozen floor. He lay down on the barely padded ground, leaving the kerosene lamp burning. Iqniq glanced down at the empty mattress and back at Sherlock, apparently only then realizing that there was only one bed. His thick silvery eyebrows rose slightly. John huffed out a breath, apparently catching the expression even lying on his back, the lamp shining in his eyes. He tipped his head back to catch Sherlock's eye, looking a bit exasperated and Sherlock suppressed a grin. The Inupiaq man's eyebrows rose further but he continued gumming at his food without comment.

Sherlock crossed the room to join John in the makeshift bed, feeling as if he were marking his claim. The newcomer's eyes tracked him.

Sherlock lay beneath the furs, his skin crawling. The Inupiat man was scrutinizing him, he knew. He had not predicted how awkward he'd feel, lying in a bed with John under a stranger's gaze. An erection could not be spotted weighed down by two caribou pelts, yet he felt as if the man were staring at it. He pretended to sleep. The floor seemed to suck all the heat from his back and Sherlock had no choice but to tense or shiver. He shivered finally, his teeth clicking together. John shifted over, lining his body up against him, his elbows brushing Sherlock's arm, his clothed right leg warming Sherlock's left. Sherlock stared at the inside of his eyelids at the false flashes of light, trying to will his erection away. He should have shivered earlier, clearly.

"Aarigaa, you look more happy," the stranger muttered.

John didn't answer.

Sherlock controlled his breathing, feigning sleep, though he could hear his heart pounding at his temples, belying his act.

"Two months. Why he come? For you? Yuay," Iqniq whispered between the wet sounds of his eating.

"He will not stay," John replied. Sherlock had to keep himself from wincing. This was a brittle time. He didn't know what John wanted from him.

He was accustomed to someone translating for him. Mrs. Hudson would tut at him or Lestrade would curse and tell him what to stop doing. And failing that, John would come storming down the stairs himself, his face red and his fists clenching, shouting abuse at him until Sherlock understood.

Here, he only saw John in short unpredictable glimpses. John crouching by the pack of sled dogs, watching him, his eyes glittering with amusement at seeing him perform a menial task. John setting the kitchen back to rights after his tantrum, his expression exasperated but his movements calm.

Sherlock wasn't sure that was enough to merit staying. His brain had ground to a halt, accustomed to the unceasing boredom now. Headaches came and went, pounding at his temples, symptoms of his brain grinding against itself. He hadn't yearned for his last stash of cocaine so much in many years. Perhaps with the drug he'd be able to ignore the constant, unceasing silence of this world, where all the colors had been bled out to grays and white.

But John was making room for him now. Sherlock glanced at the extra nails by the door, his fox lined gloves, the sanded chair legs and base just waiting for wood glue. What would it do to John, when he left? And what would it do to him to leave without John beside him?

Sherlock swallowed. He was starting to understand what Mycroft had meant, when he'd cautioned him not to go looking for John.

_He's a broken man, Sherlock. _

How had he so badly miscalculated?

_ A walking personification, you could say. A maxim. Caring is not an advantage. _

The inupiaq man kept chewing, the sound wet. Sherlock slammed his head back into the floor beneath the furs and let the pain jar his skull, but the boredom kept seeping in and John did not react to the motion.

~~/~~

John woke up early the next morning. The home was almost pitch black, lit only by the red glow of the coals. Iqniq had extinguished the lamp the night before. Sherlock was still, his breathing steady, but that didn't mean he was asleep. John was fairly certain Sherlock spent most nights staring at the inside of his eyelids for eight hours, maintaining his respiration to mimic REM sleep. Why he bothered to come to bed at all John couldn't fathom but he was grateful to be able to sleep without the noise of the man in one of his bored fits.

John blinked and rubbed at his chest. Other than a few quickly stifled incidents, Sherlock had displayed few of his regular dramatic spells. John would have guessed that cloistering Sherlock Holmes in an isolated sod house in the middle of Alaska would be tantamount to airdropping a bull into a glassworks museum, but the usually reckless, firey man had been almost entirely subdued.

He was controlling himself. Making himself more palatable. John winced and sat up. He put on his mukluks and started the water for tea.

_Two months. Why he come? For you? Yuay. _Yuay – lucky you. John sighed, leaning his arms against the kitchen countertop and letting his head drop between them. How had they gotten here? To Sherlock cutting wood and hauling water, being polite. To him refusing to go home.

_Home? _Is that what 221B could be again? He could hear Sherlock getting up behind him. Not asleep, then. Could he deal with the noise, the people asking him how he was, asking how to help him?

_I'm not mourning anymore. _John sighed, loud in the quiet room. Could he deal with Sherlock running off without him, to any unknown fate? That was a different question.

_No. _That could never be home again.

Sherlock padded up behind him, whole and alive. John wanted to turn and pull the man into his arms, beg him to stay in this forgotten lonely place.

_Don't leave me. _

That would hardly be on. John gripped the edge of the countertop, controlling himself. He didn't want to be alone here again. John exhaled, letting out a small cloud before his face. Sherlock had stayed for far too long.

Sherlock reached around him for the tin of tea and the small metal seeping ball. John ran his hand down his face, doing his best to clear his expression, and turned around. Sherlock was pouring the boiling stove water into the mug without spilling a drop. Sherlock glanced at him and handed him the full mug of hot tea. The room was too dark to make out his expression. John took a gulp of the scalding, barely-seeped drink and wrapped his fingers around the hot mug. Sherlock stared at him, his eyes wide and his hair mussed from sleep. He was gorgeous. John closed his eyes and took another sip of his drink.

"We have to check the fish cache today," he muttered. Sherlock nodded. "You do not have snow shoes," he added, knowing Sherlock would understand that meant he couldn't join them.

"I'll stay inside," Sherlock promised. John stared into his face for a moment, doubting. He could just imagine Sherlock running outside for some half-witted experiment only to get bitten by a rabid bear. He wasn't sure how long it would take to determine that Sherlock Holmes had actually gone mad. Sherlock met his gaze, looking vaguely annoyed by the scrutiny.

_You're going to leave me here, _John thought, staring at the man.

~~/~~

Sherlock threw a log into the stove and started the cannibal pot heating. He wasn't stupid enough to forgo eating, not in a place where ten minutes of exposure could kill a grown man. He picked small bites of meat out of the gravy as it heated, wary of the temperamental lead dog sleeping at his feet, its tail draped over his cold toes.

"Sherlock, why are you here?" John asked, his knuckles whitening in his grip around the mug. Sherlock frowned and turned around. John sighed, sounding frustrated and twisted to put the mug down on the counter behind him. He set it down quietly, careful not to wake the Inupiat man snoring softly behind them. "I cannot return to England," he said.

Sherlock felt something rumble in him, frustration and loneliness built up from too many years without the man and too much silence now.

"Why not?" he whispered and Gladstone lifted his head, his ears twitching. Sherlock stepped away from the stove, expecting to be bitten, but the dog simply laid its head back on its paws and closed its eyes again. "Why are you here?" he demanded.

John stayed silent for too long. Sherlock wanted to scream at the reticent man.

_Just be over this! That was years ago; why are you still upset? Don't you see what's going on? I cannot stay here like this. _

"How is this place better?" Sherlock hissed instead, gesturing wildly at the dark, makeshift home around them.

He could see the moment he lost the conversation. John took a gulp of his tea, set it back on the counter and strode across the hut. He walked over their bed furs as if they weren't there, grabbed his parka, gloves, and gun from their nails and jerked the door open, apparently deciding not to worry about the bear anymore.

Iqniq got up and dressed and followed John out without a word. He'd clearly been awake the whole time. John would care about that. Sherlock didn't.

~~/~~

The bear had gotten into the fish cache. John and Iqniq wandered over the frozen river bank, inspecting the broken bits of timber that used to be a strong wooden structure, holding his winter's supply of fish off of the snow. John exhaled heavily and let his eyes pull up off of the wreckage. They'd found six frozen whitefish and a single salmon left behind by the famished animal. Iqniq walked back to him, his dark eyes pinched in concern.

"You have enough _tuttu? _Two men," he asked, starting back on the trail to the hut. There was nothing left to do here. Fishing season was long since passed.

"No," John replied honestly, pulling his hand out of his glove and thawing his cheeks and chin. His wrists and knuckles burned with cold. He shoved them back into his warm glove. Iqniq frowned. "But I don't know if Sherlock is staying until Breakup," he added.

Iqniq turned his head to stare at him, his surprise clear.

"How come you don't know?" he asked. John's mouth twisted.

"I didn't ask," he replied. Iqniq's frown deepened. John sighed, catching the man's censure. That was not wise, to risk a winter with an uncertain number of mouths to feed. John didn't have any experience taking care of anyone else in this hostile land.

He would have to talk to Sherlock. John grimaced, dreading the conversation. Iqniq grunted, looking curious. But, as always, he asked no questions. John exhaled heavily and followed him back toward the hut, endlessly grateful.

~~/~~


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Please please review if you like it? Or, if not?**

Chapter 5

Iqniq started digging out his snowgo as soon as they got home. Going hunting, John surmised, grateful for it. Hunting was almost trivial on a snowmobile if there was any big game to find in the area.

"Watch for the bear," John grunted, shoveling snow away from the machine. Iqniq grinned, showing off his few teeth, a boasting expression. John didn't let the worry fade from his face and his friend shrugged.

"I bring my .44," he said and John laughed, remembering a shared joke from long before. Iqniq started the engine and John stepped away. The dogs went mad, barking and howling as the snowgo peeled away.

John huffed out a breath, knowing why Iqniq was not bothering to thaw inside and get something to drink before the hunt. Iqniq didn't want to see Sherlock again and delay the coming conversation.

John highly doubted Sherlock was staying through the winter. From Iqniq's quick retreat, he gathered the man doubted it as well. Which meant John was about to lose him again, ironically more permanently this time.

He had most of a new chair made in the kitchen. It'd be kindling as soon as the man had gone. And it'd be another long series of danger nights before the pain was gone.

John dawdled outside, splitting the last of the wood into stove-sized chunks until the far sound of the snowmobile's engine had faded. He brushed the splinters and bark dust from his hands and pulled a few logs into his arms to bring inside. They weren't running low but he wanted something to do with his hands.

He trudged inside finally and pushed the door closed behind him. Sherlock was leaning back in the kitchen chair, staring at the ceiling. Hot water was on the stove, ready for tea. The single mug was hanging off its nail, freshly cleaned. John dropped the firewood in its metal pot by the stove, carefully stepping over the furs he'd trampled that morning.

Sherlock looked suddenly wary, apparently picking up some detail that told him John had something to say.

_I cannot lose you. _

John felt his mouth go dry, picturing this house empty again. Silent again. Sherlock watched him, his eyes focused fully on him now.

_When are you leaving?_

John paused, squatting by the stove, putting in another log. He was recklessly unhappy. But he'd known that before. It had stopped mattering, alone out here.

_When are you leaving? _

John couldn't ask.

"What's the answer, then?" John asked, turning around. Sherlock frowned, obviously confused. He wasn't good at open questions; he always thought of too many possibilities for what he was being asked and missed the obvious one. Not that he was being particularly clear this time, John figured. "Yesterday's case," he clarified and Sherlock's eyes lit up, his shoulders relaxing.

"The midwife!" he hissed, as if he were only just then solving the years' old case. John furrowed his eyebrows, pretending to be interested. Sherlock frowned, catching the lie of course.

"Midwife?" John asked anyway. He didn't want to talk about the bear or their dwindling food supply or plans for the future.

"Clearly. The bottles in the refrigerator – for the parents to feed the child overnight. There was no breast pump in the house – clearly not the mother's workmanship – and it wasn't formula," he declared.

John raised his eyebrows, seeing Sherlock blush as he revealed that detail.

"Not formula?" John repeated and Sherlock flushed deeper, scowling at the ceiling as if it had personally offended him.

"I tasted it. Not that Donovan ever accepted that as case related, even after it revealed the truth of it all," he admitted, crossing his arms over his chest, evidently uncomfortable. John felt amusement rise through him.

"You.. you tasted a woman's breast milk," he repeated and Sherlock turned his head to glare at him.

"Yes. And it was important. A fact that did not clutter up Donovan's vacuous excuse for a brain. She said I had _mother issues,_" he spat the words out, clearly drawn into his old anger. John laughed. His voice sounded clear and free, as it once had, and Sherlock glanced at him, clearly pleased and a bit smug. John closed the stove door and pushed himself back to his feet, his bad leg barely wavering.

"Did they catch her? The midwife?" he asked, happily letting himself be drawn into the story.

~~/~~

Iqniq left the following morning. Sherlock was grateful for it. John didn't appear to truly relax until the last of the engine sounds had faded into the distance.

John went back into the house, clearly to pull out his traps, wires, and lures. Sherlock hitched up the dogs. John stepped out of the house, Gladstone at his side, and hesitated, staring at the sled team. Sherlock smiled at him as casually as he could, hoping John would read between the lines and not ask the question hanging between them.

_I'm staying," _Sherlock thought, picking up Gladstone's harness. The lead dog ran toward it, his tail wagging enthusiastically. Sherlock stared at the thing, perplexed, as it shoved its nose into his crotch in a remarkably friendly and threatening gesture. Sherlock took the opportunity to pull the harness over the dog's head, surprised that he didn't pull his hand away in ribbons. The dog pattered over into position for the sled, waiting to be hooked up.

"Good..boy," Sherlock praised, stumbling over the odd words as he connected the clasp. Caribou antlers worked as swivel pivots, he noticed. The small bits of antler were tied at the end of each dog's harness line and pushed through a circle tied in the tow line. A smart design, to keep the harness lines straight. John's idea? No – some of the hard antler pieces were worn down where they scraped against the rope, worn by more than three years of friction. Iqniq's work then, most likely. Were the elder dogs Iqniq's as well? It seemed likely. The sled shifted as John mounted the footboards. Sherlock stepped away.

"Get in," John ordered. Sherlock frowned. John had never invited him before – he was still cautious about the bear, then.

_I don't have a gun_, Sherlock thought, only to spot the frozen shotgun lying in the sled. "It'll fire in this cold?" he asked. John grunted and pulled the snowclaw onto the sled.

"Sometimes," he replied. Sherlock smiled briefly and climbed into the sled basket, pulling the tarp around himself to help block the wind.

"Let me know when you freeze and you can run alongside," John said before raising his voice to the dogs. "Hike!" he ordered and the dogs pushed forward.

~~/~~

Sherlock took in the landscape he'd missed while cloistered in the sod home. The snow was light and fluffy from a fresh snow and the dogs barely had to pull at all when they headed downhill. The sled scraped along at an impressive clip, nearly fourteen miles per hour, pushing biting wind into Sherlock face and up his sleeves. Still, the clothing John had made for him kept his chest and feet from freezing and Sherlock blocked out the rest. John ran beside the sled up every hill, his breath coming strong and even.

This was a place where John never needed Sherlock's brain. He never asked any questions, rarely spoke at all, and here Sherlock could not even hope for it. The river was frozen solid and covered with snow. John led the dogs down the banks and up again and Sherlock memorized where the dogs could grip their claws int the snow and pull them upward without sliding or flipping. At the cliffs, marked by the wreckage of what was once clearly a fish cache, Sherlock got out to run with John.

Running in the snow was different in kind. Sherlock tried to match John's footsteps, where the man had already packed down the light snow into something more manageable, but still his feet sunk and he needed to lift his long knees further than he wanted.

John stopped regularly to set the traps, never more than a mile from their home, and Sherlock took the time to pant and catch his breath. His chest and legs were sweating, releasing moisture Sherlock knew would freeze painfully if he climbed back into the sled. He chose to run. John thundered beside him, his eyes sparking and his breath coming heavily as he leaped on and off the sled, never stopping the dogs until he found a place to lay the traps. Usually at a spot where the tracks and urine spots showed an animal returning to mark its territory.

"There," Sherlock suggested, pointing out a spot hidden in the willow where small tracks passed back and forth around the same tree.

"Woah," John ordered the dogs immediately and stamped the sled claw into the snow. He nodded, approving the trapping spot. Sherlock grabbed the trap and wire and moved to set it up himself. John's eyes shone with admiration and Sherlock straightened, pleased, though the task had been mindlessly trivial. John stepped forward, unzipping his pants and Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, though he had no idea what to say. John pulled off one of his gloves and stood with his back to Sherlock but his blush showed all the way around his neck, where his skin was exposed. "Those are porcupine tracks. They love salt," he said as he peed, his neck reddening further.

Sherlock nodded, memorizing the shape of the tracks and their patterns around the tree. John zipped himself back into his pants and pulled on his glove. He flipped his wide ruffed hood over his head before he turned, but it didn't do much to hide his blush.

"You're staying through the winter?" John asked, apparently finding his courage. Sherlock paused and stared at him. John stared back, his eyes dark and steady. John would survive either way, Sherlock thought. He'd set traps and eat the winter cache and live exactly as he had before, believing his friend gone instead of simply dead. Sherlock swallowed and turned to stare over the land behind them.

What had looked like an endless expanse of solid white had context now. Their home, a mile south. The fish cache, a mile and a half south east. The willow trees they hid in that sparkled with frost every morning from across the river. There was barely anything to learn, beyond the technical aspects of survival. No mysteries and few surprises. His brain would _rot. _

John. John would only be here. He would be happier here than he'd be otherwise, alone in London. But not by much.

"I am," Sherlock answered. John's eyes widened.

"You cannot be happy here," he replied, gesturing at the emptiness around them. Sherlock snorted and threw his arms out wide.

"Well, you won't return to London," he accused. John glared at him.

"And whose fault is that?" he growled.

_Angry, _Sherlock thought, excitement pouring through him. It'd been too long since he'd seen John truly appear to care.

"I don't know. Think, whose fault is it, John?" he mocked. "I am certainly not keeping you in the middle of Alaska."

"You didn't want me there!" John shouted, pounding across the snow toward him. Sherlock felt his eyebrows furrow, confused now. "Really, Sherlock, tell me, because I've given up trying to figure your brain out. Why did you leave – why did you pretend to _die _–without me?"

Sherlock scoffed, releasing a puff of warm air into the painful cold.

"Would you have rathered an Accuracy International Arctic Warfare Covert shell through your brain?" he asked, doing his best to keep himself collected. John snorted, an ugly sound.

"Is that what it was? An arctic?" he asked, looking amused for a moment. Sherlock arched his eyebrows and John shook his head, returning to the topic. "It's bullshit. You had the choice to bring me with you, wherever the hell you went. If you didn't, you wouldn't look so bloody guilty all the time," he snarled. Sherlock bristled, drawing himself to his full height, to keep John away from him.

"Would you have preferred I risk it? Gamble and see if he shoots you? Would that show more 'love'?" he sneered the word, feeling his emotions pick up despite his intention. He would always reject the skewed idea of caring most people had that would have left John bleeding out on the street. John was perhaps one of the most competent fighters of their generation but no one could dodge a sniper's bullet.

John whitened and Sherlock thought he'd perhaps gone too far. He tended to forget that he didn't need to win in such conversations, just get out unscathed. He regretted leaving John to mourn him, regretted it deeply, John was right about that. It had sent John here, made him unwilling to return.

_Why? _The question tugged at him.

"Why are you here? Why didn't you forget me?" Sherlock pressed, leaning down to thrust his face into John's personal space. John stepped back and Sherlock felt anger pressing at his brain. "Why didn't you heal? Wander around for a few months, get a job, move out, marry some skinny pedantic school teacher with a secret divorce in her past?"

John backed away from him, his eyes wide and unfocused. Sherlock frowned. That wasn't right. John always fought back, only grew more steady in his convictions the more he was threatened.

"Sherlock, walk toward the sled. Now," John ordered, his voice hard and unyielding.

"You were supposed to heal," Sherlock hissed but he obeyed automatically. John turned and grabbed the shotgun out of the sled. Sherlock froze.

_He'd shoot me before he let me die in the cold. _That didn't mean John wouldn't shoot him. Unlikely though – why would he have waited so long?

"Sorry to disappoint" John said, his tone calm and his voice level. He loaded the gun with steady hands – too steady, no sign of his usual tremor. Scared then – but John was never intimidated by him.

"What is behind me?" Sherlock asked, carefully matching his tone. John's face twitched in something like a smile. Approval, Sherlock thought, keeping his muscles relaxed.

"The grizzly," John answered, pumping a round into the gun's chamber. "Cover your ears."

Sherlock obeyed, matching the steady pace of John's movement and John pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. John jerked off his gloves, his eyes locked on something around Sherlock's shoulder.

"Should I turn?" Sherlock asked. John nodded, wrapping his hands around the trigger and chamber of the shotgun to warm them. Sherlock obeyed, moving as he did to grab the .44 out of John's holster.

"Sherlock -" John started. Sherlock finished turning around and spotted the animal in the dark. It was ambling toward them, its wide paws leaving heavy prints in the snow. It didn't look at that dangerous, despite its size. It had a thick brown coat of fur that waved in the slight breeze, making its true size hard to determine. 140 kilograms, Sherlock guessed, watching it pause for a moment, its nose toward their peed-on trap. It was fifteen and a half meters away, at least, but John's eyes were pinched in concern, his hands wrapped around the frozen gun.

"How dangerous is this then?" Sherlock asked, frowning. John swallowed, cracked open the gun to empty the chamber and caught the cold bullet in his palm.

"Without this gun working? If it decides to eat us we have no chance," John replied, lowering the round back into the gun and cocking it again. The snap of the gun chamber resonated in the quiet. The bear paused, one foot lifted in the air.

This wasn't a threat Sherlock was accustomed to. He flipped the safety off John's handgun, wondering if he could hit its heart.

"Sherlock – don't shoot unless I do and hit it in the face," John ordered.

"Can we run?" Sherlock asked, feeling his heartbeat start to rise as the bear started toward them again.

"Nope," John answered. "Wave your arms," he ordered.

_Strange way to die. _

Sherlock glanced at John to make sure he wouldn't be waving a gun at the man. John was waving his arms slowly, as if he were an overdramatic tourist trying to signal a taxi. Sherlock joined him, feeling ridiculous now.

"Of all the deaths I predicted, 'eaten by a North American bear' was not one of them," Sherlock commented. John huffed out a laugh. Sherlock smiled, grateful for a moment. John's humor was always best when in imminent danger.

"Do you know why they say to always bring a .44 to a grizzly attack?" John asked as the bear stood upon its back legs. It was a fluffy, albeit intimidating thing. It stood with its huge paws limp before its wide chest. "Shit it's starving," John muttered. Sherlock blinked, searching for evidence in the animal's thick fur. He had nothing to compare it to. He wasn't comfortable to have John know so much more than he, to have nothing to offer the man, no way to help him. The bear landed on its feet and started padding toward them, picking up speed.

Sound burst into Sherlock's right ear and ricocheted over the sparse hills nearby. The dogs went wild barking. John had taken his shot.

Half of the beast's face was hanging off in a bloody flap, but it kept coming. The wind, the gun kickback, the bullet shape in the chamber – there was all too much to calculate to aim well, too much unknown, and John needed him to fire. Sherlock emptied the clip into the animal's face but he could see from the minimal evidence of damage that he'd missed, hit its chest somewhere if he was lucky and had hit at all.

_Not good. _John was stuffing his next shell into the shotgun chamber and backing up, toward the dogs. To protect them or for his own protection? The thought shot through Sherlock's mind, unanswered, as the bear accelerated toward him. He backed up, unsteady on the soft snow, and the bear approached too quickly.

He needed to find a way to kill it as it killed him, a way to save John. Ideas spun in his head, all unviable. He hadn't saved a last shot.

_Idiot. _

The bear bounced up on its back feet in its last stride, apparently deciding to pound him into the earth. It stood a head taller than him, its fur filling his vision as it rose up in front of him.

"Sher-" John shouted from too closeby. Sherlock turned his head just in time to see John push the muzzle of the shotgun up beneath the bear's chin. The bear opened its mouth, showing off its broken, rotting teeth, and started to drop down.

Sound exploded into Sherlock's ear and something wet splashed into his face. Sherlock continued stepping backward, his ears ringing, trying for more time in case the animal lived. He wiped the liquid off his eyelids with his sleeve, not wanting to get bits of flesh and brain in his eyes. The dogs were barking and growling without pause.

Sickness rolled through him. If he'd just lost John, here in the snow? Sherlock pulled his eyes open, looking for John, and had to wipe thick blood from his eyelids before he could see.

John stood away from the dead bear, leaning over his knees. Sherlock exhaled, relief washing over him.

_I love you. _

"Why?" he asked. John shot him a puzzled glance and grabbed a handful of snow to wipe the freezing brains from his face. "Why should you bring a .44 to a grizzly attack?" Sherlock clarified, keeping his voice as steady as he could despite his pounding adrenaline. John grinned at him, life sparking back into his eyes, and he spat blood into the snow.

"So the bear has something to shove up your ass before it eats you," he replied, laughing between his teeth. Sherlock smiled, his mouth stretching widely.

John giggled and met his gaze, good humor burning in his eyes. Sherlock grinned, thrilled to be laughing with the man again. They giggled wildly, letting the adrenaline seep from their veins, while the dogs barked.

"Well, we're fed through winter," John said cheerfully, pulling his skinning knife from his belt. He stilled suddenly and his smile melted from his face. Sherlock sighed, frustrated. "You will not be happy here," John repeated as the old conversation reasserted itself.

John knelt and split open the flesh of the bear, his posture heavy and exhausted again. The organs pushed themselves out into his hands, obscenely ballooning their way out of the warm flesh to steam on the snow, under pressure from their own weight. John cut out the esophagus of the bear, or at least what was left of it, his hands moving too calmly.

"You miscalculated," he said finally. Sherlock scrubbed at his hair with the empty .44 and glared at the man.

"I realize that," he growled, gesturing to the empty tundra, the peed-on porcupine trap, the endlessly barking dogs. "What I don't understand is _how. _You were supposed to pick yourself up, forget that I ever existed, and go find someone useless to make you happy," he accused.

"Yeah, well, I didn't," John said slowly, cutting away the fur from the bear's chest wall, the blade pointed up toward the sky, the knife cutting its way out above his finger as it guided him beneath the bear's flesh. "You died and I – I came out here. You can't tell me 'it'll be dangerous' and fix me, this time," he pronounced.

Sherlock winced and desperation licked at him.

"Can't you see? How can you be so _stupid _so _constantly__?_ Or are you simply blind to everything you don't already understand," he growled, turning in a circle so he didn't have to face the man. There was nothing but silent snow behind him, the innocent circles of porcupine tracks.

"I know, Sherlock, I'm an idiot," John replied and he only sounded tired. Sherlock whirled, facing the bear, the pink snow, the bits of brain on John's parka.

"Can't you see that you were better off without me?" he hissed, his voice carrying over the snow.

"I loved you!" John shouted, throwing the blade into the snow and standing up. "You were brilliant and excited about the world and you brought me back into it. How did you think I would be after you died?" His voice was carried away by the cold wind. The dogs paused in their barking, and started again with more vigor. Sherlock wanted to shoot them. He didn't know what to say.

_Loved. _Past tense. Unintentional? John looked away from him, apparently reading something on his face he didn't want to see. Sherlock schooled his features into an expressionless mask. He should have done that before. Stupid.

_I loved you_. Past tense. John Watson had loved him. How could he have missed that?

Could they have been together? Sherlock tried to imagine it. Tried to imagine kissing the man, before he'd left to meet Moriarty at the top of a hospital building. Had he wanted that? He didn't know.

He wanted it now. He'd missed John in a remarkably physical manner, the three years he'd spent tracking Moriarty's money, finding his contacts, finding a past crime to pin on each of them. He'd spent his days with a gaping hole at his side, losing an important mark's trust by suddenly turning to the side, looking to speak to a shorter man who wasn't there. He'd spent the nights wanting to run his hands over John's back, feel his scar, smell him, push up into him and feel the man gasp with desire for him. He'd wanted John before he'd known he'd wanted anything at all.

Prostitutes and one night stands were nothing, warm bodies without anything inside them. He'd spent only one hour considering a short, blond SAS officer before tossing the idea away. And he'd lost John before he'd ever known he wanted him.

"Well, that was quite awkward enough," John stated, taking the handgun from Sherlock and reloading it skillfully. His eyes flickered with fury. Sherlock tucked his hands behind his back, unsure where to put them. John holstered the gun and turned back to face him. He held his hands oddly, up by his face almost in surrender. Not in true surrender - he threw up in hands in frustration whenever he gave in on something; not to keep himself from hitting Sherlock – he could meet his eyes without trouble; he was angry with himself, then. Sherlock blinked, the answer coming to him – John was keeping his fingers away from his handgun. Habit now, probably. A new habit.

"You almost shot yourself," he deduced. John's face hardened and he walked back toward the bear.

"Many times," he replied, his voice firm, daring Sherlock to pity him. He bent to pick his knife back out of the snow.

Sherlock tried to imagine John putting a muzzle to his lips and pulling the trigger. His teeth would be blown back into his brain. John had carried a Sig Sauer P226R in London, certainly powerful enough to send a bullet fully through the back of his skull. John would have angled it carefully, then.

For him? John couldn't have cared that much. John had always had a steady group of friends and a constant stream of lovers to buffer him from such a need. He was always the stronger of the two of them.

_Then why is he here? _Sherlock's reasoning demanded. Sherlock struggled to keep the muscles around his eyes from tensing.

"Why?" he asked, baffled. John took off his glove and ran a hand down his face, warming it where it threatened to freeze. Sherlock ignored his own frozen nose and cheeks, keeping his eyes on John. He needed this answer.

"I loved you. I was in love with you," John repeated, kneeling before the bear again and picking up his knife. "More than anything." He finished his cut down through the bear's pelvis.

_Loved. _Past tense. Not a verbal error, then. Sherlock winced and turned around, preferring to face the clean snow now. Not contemplate how much he'd given up, how much more he'd almost lost. He kept an eye on the horizon, though he doubted there was any more risk of starving bears in the area now. He didn't know what else to do with his gaze, his hands.

_I miscalculated. _He could have returned only to attend John Watson's funeral. Love was a vicious motivator, after all. John had been enamored of him. Like Molly Hooper. But so much more than that. Loved him fully. He should have seen it. He was _living _with the man and he'd missed it. Assumed John couldn't be so affected by him. Everyone else had seen it. They had to think him such a fool. Sherlock closed his eyes, sickened. How Mycroft must have pitied him. And he'd died and it'd destroyed John Watson. Sherlock opened his eyes.

There was something that didn't fit.

"You're not gay," Sherlock said finally. He'd been sure of it. John huffed out a laugh and pulled the intestines out of the animal. They came out in one tangle of organs, and John sorted through them, inspecting them carefully.

_For shot and broken bowels, _Sherlock realized, peering at the animal's chest. It did not look like he'd gotten more than one shot into the beast, and it was clearly lodged in the thick layer of muscle and skin protecting the animal's organs. There was almost nothing in the way of visceral fat; John was right – the animal was starving through its hibernation. And still his handgun had done little to protect them.

John kept the heart and liver and threw the intestines to the dogs.

"It's not popular to be bisexual or curious in army fatigues," John mentioned. "I wasn't going to let that become public unless there was something to gain." Sherlock grimaced, hating his own idiocy. Mycroft must have _relished _it.

"You'd gotten your discharge papers," he protested, baffled. He'd thought of that during that awkward moment in Angelo's, thought John could be hiding his sexuality, for the sake of the army. But John was never going back and still had vehemently protested any suggestion of a sexual connection between them. He'd been convinced he'd spoken in error, that he'd rejected a man who was actively _not _coming on to him. John smiled grimly.

"When the most observant man in the world thinks you're hitting on him, you probably are," he replied quietly. Sherlock swallowed, watching the man as he struggled to tip the bear onto its ribs, to help the blood drain and keep it warm.

"You were never going back," he pressed, confused. John shrugged, a rather self deprecating smile on his face.

"I hadn't accepted that," he replied.

He'd solved cases of couples killing themselves over such idiocy. A woman killed herself because the man beat her; the man killed himself because the woman had done. Idiots, he'd called them. Pathetic.

But would he have survived, finding the remaining pieces of John's skull to vacuum up out of the couch, in the draperies, after the cop's had gone? One cleaning never got it all. No, that was idiotic – John wouldn't have left his corpse for Mrs. Hudson to find. He'd have gone somewhere secluded. The bedsit, then. A room where the bullet wouldn't get far – a bathroom, probably - and left a note of what they'd find when they opened the door. Sherlock wouldn't have to clean up the skull fragments. Irrelevant. John would be gone. If anything could have destroyed him, that would have been it. He'd have killed every man and woman associated with Jim Moriarty. Spared the children, perhaps. Maybe. Dug the fingernail sculptures out of the broken vent and cut them into a powder. Seen how quickly he could follow John down.

They pulled the bear pelt onto the tarp and into the sled in silence, apparently agreeing not to continue the conversation. John ran his way back home, the dogs occupied in pulling the bear, but the joy in it was gone. Sherlock trudged forward, sure to keep pace with the team. The snow was still soft but the bear weighed down the sled and made the boards squeal against the snow as they went. Awkwardness settled over them like a sheet.

He should have said something, Sherlock thought. Should have told John he'd loved him back, or that they'd been idiots, but the moment was past and their breathing came too heavily to permit speech. Nor was there much point; John didn't need him anymore, didn't love him anymore. They pulled back to the hut and there was work to do.

Sherlock uncovered the dogfood pile while John unhitched the dogs and chained them to the willow trees. Sherlock fed them each and helped John drag the bear and tarp off the sled and into the house. They got inside and stripped off their outer wear. John grabbed his skinning knife and Sherlock grabbed the largest blade to cut off a chunk of bear meat for their dinner.

They would certainly have plenty to eat, at least. The bear's body covered the floor, its right paw flopping over their mattress, threatening to spread blood onto the hide. John shoved cardboard under the body, apparently aware that the bloody fur would thaw quickly.

Sherlock felt tension ratcheting through him as they worked. He needed to speak but he didn't know what to say. Would it be rude to start a new conversation? Would that be wrong in some way? He'd never done this before. He didn't want to reject John. He wanted to push him into the far wall and fuck him until John yelled his name and bit him and promised to be fine. Sherlock felt his stomach tighten, his dick pulse and start to grow, and turned his body away from John to hide it. Surely an erection wasn't an appropriate response.

~~/~~


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 6

John watched Sherlock turn away from him and turned his gaze back on his work. It was just as well the truth had finally come out between them. He'd long since accepted Sherlock's polite rejection, so many years ago.

Shame twisted in him at the thought of how far he'd fallen without Sherlock at his side. That he'd eschewed England altogether, unable to face the graffiti on every wall, landmines of Sherlock's name and _I believe _assaulting him. That Sherlock had to see him here, living in a way even the Inupiat had left behind, because he couldn't face people asking him questions and needing him to smile or talk like a semi capable being.

_I was so alone and I owe you so much. _

Christ.

They had the whole winter to get over this. John let his body relax, considering the months ahead. They had a safe two months before the ice began to weaken too much to travel and he'd have to bring Sherlock into town. They would have time to let this awkwardness die and they could be friends again. It would be a better life here, knowing Sherlock Holmes was alive in his world.

"We need a second mug," John mentioned. Sherlock turned and stared at him as if he'd started to scream. John turned back to pulling the bear's flesh from the carcass.

"Yes," Sherlock replied finally. He smiled softly, pleased. It'd be a better winter, passing it with the genius by his side, even if Sherlock would be intolerably bored. "And books, perhaps," Sherlock added cautiously.

"I'll drive you into town in the morning," John replied, aware that the line was becoming something of a motif between them. He leaned down and cut carefully around the bear's small tail.

"A week," Sherlock corrected. John glanced up, puzzled. "It'll take you a week to finish that," Sherlock explained. John glanced down at the huge pelt and carcass he had laid over the floor and nodded, agreeing. This hide would sell very well in town.

~~/~~

Sherlock pulled himself onto the caribou hide mattress but stayed above the covers, not wanting to be the second to go to bed though he wasn't quite sure why not. John seemed to feel the same way though. He threw the carcass outside to deal with in the morning and settled into his work on the hide, but his hands moved slower the later it got. He wasn't tired; Sherlock could hear his leg tapping against the floor rapidly as he worked. Anxious, then.

Sherlock lay on his back, not knowing what to do. Should he approach John? John hadn't shown any indication of interest but then, he'd missed it before, to rather spectacular miscalculations. What would happen if he turned and pulled John onto the bed? Would John let him? Would John turn and pull him closer? He wanted to be closer to John in a way he'd never truly wanted anything before. His erection ached and pressed against his boxers and his arms felt too empty. He was acutely lonely without the man in his bed.

No wonder people killed for this. He understood that now.

John stood up from the pelt suddenly, catching Sherlock's attention. He crossed the kitchen to the table and climbed up onto the chair. Sherlock frowned, confused, and watched the man stick his head up through the hole he'd created weeks before. John was not planning to fix it now – he'd not brought any of his supplies nor tools to the kitchen table, but John rarely made bread and never at night. Sherlock heard the heavy scrape of metal against wood and felt his interest catch. John was taking down the red box.

Sherlock sat up and twisted the lamp gauge until it burned fully, casting heavy shadows over the room. John climbed down from the table, the red toolbox cradled in his arm. He met Sherlock's gaze and swallowed heavily, his smile grim as he set the box down on the soft mattress. Sherlock leaned against the wall, unsure what to think when John went back to his work without a word.

Sherlock peered at the man, finally faced with a puzzle he could solve. What had changed, that John would share this with him now? Whatever secret contained in the box had lost its value.

Two revelations; that John could be attracted to men and that John Watson had loved him once. Whatever fit in the small toolbox was clearly physical evidence that John had had before moving into 221 B. Surely he had not loved Sherlock before they'd met; John had not recognized him in that Barts laboratory, that was clearly true. No, John had never been one of his lovestruck fans. So, the second secret then; some physical evidence that John could be attracted to men. Sherlock's brain spun through options, overjoyed at a _task _set before it, one that _mattered. _A sex toy wouldn't do it; almost anything could be self administered and gave no proof of the fantasized gender. Gay pride paraphernalia was possible, but who would haul such items all the way to the arctic, the only personal items he'd kept at all? Replaceable, commercial products were rarely so safeguarded. A personal item then, irreplaceable. A photograph or a video or something self made. Something self-made and irreplaceable that showed definitive proof of John's homosexual proclivities? A picture or a video. Photographs, then, most likely. Of sex scenes? John did not blush when he set the box down in obvious invitation. Showed no sign of shame. Just a certain grim resignation. Grim? Sherlock felt his eyes widen in realization, recognizing John's old expression. More than evidence of his sexual nature – evidence of yet another failed relation. A revealing picture of him and an old male partner.

Sherlock watched John as he quietly scraped at the fox pelt. He did not need to open the box; what did he care what John's old partners looked like? Utterly irrelevant.

"What was his name?" Sherlock asked instead, in case John had ever mentioned him. John looked up, his mouth already open, ready to ask how he knew what he did. Sherlock readied himself to say 'obvious', as John always liked to hear, but John simply closed his mouth and ran a hand over the soft bear pelt before him.

"Marcus," he said and Sherlock flipped through his memory, ensuring the name had been mentioned in passing. It'd been brought up multiple times; not a coveted, guarded secret then; that relationship was truly over. Why? If they'd broken up John would be too proud to keep his photographs so carefully. Death, then, and John was long since finished mourning but couldn't bear to let the memories go. A lover, killed in the war, most likely.

_I was the second to die, _Sherlock thought, swallowing uncomfortably as he opened the toolbox, curiosity getting the better of them.

Marcus was apparently a lithe, blond man with a bad mustache and an easy smile. They both wore fatigues and kept an appropriate, cautious distance from each other in their overly platonic embraces. Right on all counts then, but there was always _something. _The pictures with Marcus were buried beneath a dozen different snapshots of Sherlock Holmes, pictures of him with his violin beside the leftside window at dusk, clearly taken by Mrs. Hudson at Christmas four years before. Crime scene photographs were Sherlock was only a face in the crowd of police officers and flashing sirens. Everything John could gather, after his death, as he'd never been a man to take photos himself.

_How did I miss this? _

John folded the bear skin away and turned down the lamp, twisting the wick down until the flame died. Sherlock shut the box quietly and set it aside. It was too dark to see and he'd clearly seen all that John had wanted him to. This would be harder to determine now. It would be more difficult to see John's pupils, see if they dilated, see if John flushed.

_How did I miss this? _he berated himself.

~~/~~

John stared at the dark rafters, doubting he was going to get much sleep that night.

_I loved you. _

Bloody hell. Sherlock had paled and stared at him like he'd said something horrible. Had peered at his photographs, as if fighting disbelief.

_How had you missed that? _John wondered. He'd gotten quite accustomed to Sherlock knowing everything about him; he'd never been particularly convinced that Sherlock was ignorant of that particular unspoken truth between them.

He thought he was starting to prefer it unspoken again. Sherlock lay like a rock beside him, his muscles utterly still and his mind almost tangibly whirling. John blew into his palms and rubbed at his face, wanting to groan with frustration. At least they had time to let this awkwardness die.

Sherlock shifted onto his side suddenly, turning in the small bed to face him. John swallowed and turned his head, curious what his strange friend wanted. To his shock, Sherlock lifted a hand and ran it gently down his face, over his neck.

_Taking my pulse, _John deduced when Sherlock's slender fingers paused at his neck. He met Sherlock's eyes, wondering what the man was trying to determine. His pounding heartbeat and his rapidly growing erection surely couldn't reveal anything that hadn't already been said.

"You are still attracted to me," Sherlock declared, his pale eyes wide with wonder. John cleared his throat, wondering when the curious genius would release him. Sherlock pushed himself up on one arm and John's loins tightened, imagining Sherlock's lithe body pulling on top of his own, imagining Sherlock's weight sinking onto him. Sherlock's eyebrows rose in interest, apparently catching the reaction.

_He'd be a hell of a lover, _John thought, swallowing heavily.

"Yes," he answered belatedly and Sherlock smiled. John blinked, dazzled. It was Sherlock's full, elated grin, irrespective of any self consciousness. His eyes lit up and John could barely keep his hands where they were, folded over his stomach, only then wondering where this conversation was going.

Sherlock pulled his body on top of his. John had to move quickly to avoid his arms being trapped and he ended with his hands running up Sherlock's back, sliding the thin material of his shirt over his sharp shoulder blades. Sherlock settled over him, his legs aligned scissoring with his own, their groins fitted beside each other's.

"Sherlock-" John started, shocked, his brain going into overdrive as he struggled not to grip at the fabric of Sherlock's shirt. He could feel the heat of Sherlock's skin on his palms, feel the man's bare feet slide beside his own and he almost gasped at the sensation. Sherlock stared at him, his pale eyes darting over his face, cataloging details. An experiment, John told himself, struggling to keep from grinding his erection up into Sherlock's hip. Sherlock's muscled arms were tensed beside his head and John cursed the darkness that kept him from admiring him, enjoying this singular moment in its entirety. It'd fuel the rest of his masturbatory fantasies for the rest of his days.

_Christ. _John cleared his throat again.

"I want to fuck you, John," Sherlock stated.

John knew he gaped at the man. He couldn't keep his mouth closed. He wanted to say something but his brain was too busy processing, trying to keep up.

"What-" he managed and Sherlock shifted down onto his elbows, gripping a hand into John's hair and grinding his erection into his thigh. John responded before he could stop himself and pushed into that pressure. Sherlock let out a gasp – his eyes eyes widening. Unfeigned. John knew when Sherlock was faking a reaction. He went back to gaping at the man.

"I'm backwards, arn't I? I'm supposed to kiss you first," Sherlock said, speaking more rapidly. He released John's hair, shifting as if to leave, and John tightened his grip on the man's shirt before he'd even considered it. Sherlock smiled again, looking nervous but pleased, and John met his gaze.

"You really -" he started and Sherlock ground down on him again. John inhaled sharply, fighting back the urge to pull the man down to him.

"Obviously," Sherlock drawled. John stared at him anyway.

"And you want to -" he started but shook his head rapidly, cutting Sherlock off when the idiot savant opened his mouth to speak. "I know, obviously," he said, trying to get his brain back online.

"Sorry, did you not want? -" Sherlock started, pulling back again, looking terribly confused and a bit appalled at the situation. John tightened his grip in the man's shirt again.

He pushed a hand into Sherlock's hair. It was thick and soft beneath his fingers. Sherlock's eyes flickered with anticipation and nerves and John smiled, confidence rising through him.

He pulled Sherlock down and kissed him like he'd always wanted to. He started slowly, knowing the first touch of lips was never as spectacular for him as the growing tension, the building need. He felt Sherlock's soft lips against his own, the man's stubble beneath his palm, and smiled, not caring that he disrupted the kiss. Sherlock beamed, his smile stretching hugely across his face and John pulled him down to kiss him again.

_I'm kissing him. _John's heart rate rose wildly.

Sherlock shifted, pushing him into the mattress, and ran a hand down his neck. John groaned, the sound rumbling against Sherlock's chest. He could feel the man's pulse pounding beneath his hand and kissed him again.

John ran a hand up Sherlock's side, over his ribs -covered with a safe layer of fat and muscle now. Sherlock ground down against him again and John gasped, thrilled to feel the man hard, enthusiastic against him.

_I cannot lose you. _

John blinked and shifted his hand to Sherlock's chest. He pressed gently and Sherlock pulled away, his eyes darting over his face again.

"Sherlock, I can't do this casually," he stated as firmly as he could.

_I cannot spend two months in a bed with you without fucking you either, _his brain supplied unhelpfully. That was a problem. Sherlock frowned.

"We live together. We work together. We go out and have fun, we have sex, how would that be casual?" he asked, squinting at him as if trying to gather the information from the smallest detail in John's wrinkled face. John smiled grimly and pressed harder on Sherlock's chest, pushing him away, his own exuberance plummeting.

"You're leaving," he stated, sure of it. Sherlock frowned deeper, looking utterly baffled now.

"Why would I chose to stay for the winter only to leave after it? What would be the point?" he protested. John blinked.

_That's not possible. _

"You want to stay?" he asked, unable to believe it. Sherlock huffed out a breath, apparently frustrated now. John felt their erections softening between them and wanted to punch himself.

"No," Sherlock stated, as if that should be obvious. Which, given, it was. "But you've repeatedly refused to return to London."

John blinked.

"You'd stay here for me?" he pressed, hope rising dangerously in his chest. Sherlock huffed and shifted to support himself on one elbow. He gestured down his body dramatically.

"I'm not in London," he declared, as if that should answer the question. John swallowed heavily.

He was in great danger of falling in love with his man, in the middle of the Alaskan tundra. Sherlock pressed his free hand to his neck again, keeping track of his pulse.

_He can't see me well, _John remembered.

"I want to fuck you, John," Sherlock stated, his voice deep, and John knew his pulse jumped. His half-hard cock twitched between them and he longed to reach a hand down between them, feel Sherlock's erection leak precum into his hand. Hear Sherlock's groan and make his eyes light up with wonder.

"It's not complicated, John," Sherlock replied and John had to disagree.

"No, right. I'm falling for you again. I cannot have you fuck me and run back to London. And you'll be miserable here. That's not complicated at all."

Sherlock scowled.

"I am not leaving, John," he repeated slowly, as if speaking to an idiot. John paused, a hand on Sherlock's back keeping him in place.

He knew he was at a crossroads. He could push at Sherlock's chest, only a slight pressure and Sherlock would pull away. It'd be awkward, and awkward in the morning, but they'd have months to get past that. And if Sherlock stayed after the river ice broke apart and the water flowed freely downstream, when they'd be stuck here until snowfall, perhaps he'd give in to the tension growing between them, and they'd collect berries and fish and eat their fill and fish until the river froze. And he'd teach Sherlock how to fish under the river ice until the ice froze too thick and winter had come again. Maybe they'd find themselves in this position again, when he'd be sure that Sherlock would stay.

Or he could pull him closer, kiss him again, find out now what that brilliant fascinating mind could do when it grew sexual.

See if Sherlock left him. But have him now. Incautious. Painfully foolish, probably. Could he keep himself away from his gun, if Sherlock left again?

Probably. Yes.

Sherlock ran his hand down his side, over his arm and elbow. A remarkably comforting touch, from such a harsh man. But then Sherlock could always read his mind.

"Could be dangerous," Sherlock said, smirking slightly. John grinned, his heartbeat picking up again.

He dug his fingernails into Sherlock's back and pulled him closer.

~~/~~

John woke up, groggy from too little sleep. The room was cold, the ice thick where it'd built up inside the window, but the bed was like a furnace beneath the hides. It'd been a long time since he'd been too warm.

He turned his head to see Sherlock awake, staring at the house's top beam, as he'd spent most of their nights here, awake but in the bed for warmth.

"It figures the first time I have sex there'd be a headless bear on the floor," he commented.

_First time? _That confirmed that. John covered his face, groaning, only to realize he had blood on his hands.

"Yes. That wasn't hygienic at all," he stated, giggling, his post-coital nerves vanishing before they'd even really arisen. Sherlock tipped on his side to face him.

"A bath, I think," he stated and John groaned again. He pulled himself from the bed, ignoring how his body instantly began to shiver. They didn't have nearly enough water in the barrel.

"I'll get the snow to melt," he groaned, pulling on his overpants and mukluks. Sherlock was already feeding more wood into the fire.

John dressed and stepped outside with the clean buckets, deciding they'd pour out the slop bucket with the morning's gray water. A headless bear carcass waited outside the door, frozen in the snow.

_Well, at least it wasn't _in _the room, _he thought, laughing between his teeth in the sharp cold. He inhaled slowly, trying to take in the fact that he'd been fucked by Sherlock Holmes. He could still feel the animal grease between his thighs.

"Christ," he cursed, trying to think of what this would have been like, living in 221B, Sherlock's experiments stinking up the kitchen, a crime case waiting in the wings. A jolt of yearning shot through him and John exhaled slowly. They'd been such idiots. He returned inside.

Sherlock was already heating a pot about the stove.

They bathed quickly, the hot water cooling too rapidly on their bodies. John let the water drip off his body to the floor as he washed, wanting to give the wood a second cleaning now that the hide was scraped and put away. Sherlock helped him lift the mattress and lean it against the wall and he scrubbed the floor with soap, letting his body air dry in the chill before he dressed. Sherlock was grinding pepper into the pot on the stove. Making gravy, John guessed, humming appreciatively at the smell of bread wafting into the room. He was wearing his pleated trousers and silk shirt again, its collar artfully unbuttoned. He had dressed carefully and he'd achieved his purpose. John was already hardening, watching the man crouch on the floor to pull the new loaf out of the oven.

It was strange to be naked before the man, when he'd always kept himself so carefully modest, kept his scar hidden. There was nothing dramatic or mysterious about the wound. He'd been shot like any other soldier in the line of duty and it'd left a web of damaged, tight tissue over his chest where the bullet had ripped out its exit. Shot from behind, but not friendly fire. Women thought they'd find it attractive, a _battle scar. _They always found a painful, nerve-damaged wreck of skin instead that tingled when they touched it too softly. Sherlock found a puzzle and he'd kept his fingers running firmly over the area when he touched it, never setting off the spasming nerves.

_He wants this again, _John thought, hope squeezing at his heart as he watched the man pretend not to notice him but bend over the counter just a bit more than usual as he cut the bread. Sherlock glanced back at him, his pupils blown wide and his smile easy.

_I could have guessed he'd be a flirt, _John thought, thrilled to see it directed at him.

Love for this man was threatening to overwhelm him. John pushed himself into the kitchen chair, an eye on the waiting pile of chair pieces beside it. He'd need more wood glue, if Sherlock was really going to stay.

"I'm going to stay, John," Sherlock stated, his voice rumbling. John glanced up to see the consulting detective place the heated meat pot on the table, a piece of bread on both of their plates.

John nodded and dug into his food, doubting. He could be painfully happy here, if Sherlock would stay.

He could always break the chair into kindling after he left. The extra wood glue would still be useful. Sherlock scowled at him, evidently reading his thoughts.

"We'll need oatmeal. I ran out after ice fishing," John commented. Sherlock glanced at the meat on the end of his fork.

"That would be preferable," he agreed.

John stood up from his chair to reheat their bath water for the dishes, wondering what Sherlock was to him now. A lover, a partner, a flatmate with benefits? He'd take all of it and any of it, so he didn't ask. The only important question was if Sherlock would stay or if he wouldn't.

_ All that matters to me is the work. Without it my brain rots. _That couldn't have changed that much. John had never wanted to take the work away from him.

Sherlock pressed up behind him, his bare chest warm against John's back, and dropped his plate into the basin of gray water. John wanted to crawl back into bed and relish the morning. He was permitted to touch this unapproachable, brilliant man. But he needed to replace the traps they'd left undone the day before.

"John," Sherlock purred, his voice deep, and John turned. Sherlock had a light brush of hair over his chest, groin, and legs but was otherwise almost entirely hairless. John smoothed his hands over the taller man's waist, watching Sherlock's face to see if the affectionate touch was welcome. Sherlock leaned into it and nuzzled at his neck. "Bored, John," he complained, but his voice was deeper now, almost sultry. John chuckled and backed up toward the mattress. The traps could wait.

~~/~~

There was a moment right after orgasm that was almost better than cocaine. His brain paused, endorphins flowing freely, and he could breathe. He'd used masturbation as a way to temporarily stop his boredom in secondary school, before it'd grown tiresome and he'd gone to university and found the drug that focused his brain instead and made him powerful.

But the cocaine had turned on him, soured his mind until he couldn't think without it.

This was better. At the end of the day, he was a man. John Watson was the only one who never forgot that. He pressed his nose into John's hard shoulder blade and breathed in his scent for a moment. Is this what they'd be now? Two men, living and fucking in the Arctic? Dull.

Sherlock felt his brain click back online and pulled his arms from around John, hoping he was not moving too soon. That was rude, supposedly. John grumbled a protest but didn't seem fervent about it and Sherlock pulled himself away into the cold air. He stepped over John onto the floor and started to dress.

"Mmrph. Traps later," John grumbled, burying his face in his pillow.

"I'll do them," Sherlock offered. John's exposed eye snapped open and he stared at him, looking rather concerned. Sherlock scowled back at him. He needed something to _do._

"Don't die," John said finally, evidently deciding to trust in Sherlock's claim. He closed his eye again.

_I'm staying, _Sherlock wanted to say. He pulled on his too-short snow boots instead, wishing for John's fur and skin covered pair.

He hitched the dogs up without trouble. They stood too still in their harnesses, not jerking at the tow lines, ready to go. Instead, they sniffed at his legs and hands, apparently confused by why he had their harnesses on at all. All except for Gladstone who always conserved his strength and heat until the snow claw was removed. Sherlock climbed onto the footboards carefully. They were wider than his feet and a comfortable span apart and Sherlock felt no unease balancing while he pulled up the snow claw, keeping his hand on the driving bar as John had always done.

"Hike!" he shouted, getting the distinct impression that John was watching from the window behind him. Gladstone merely picked up his head from where he was lying and considered him briefly. The other dogs ignored the order entirely. Sherlock blinked. Dogs weren't machines. How did John make them _go?_

Discomfort coursed through him, imagining walking back inside having failed so swiftly.

Sherlock glared at the lead dog, willing it to stand up and work, though he could see no possible motivation for the animal to do so. John would not let it starve.

"I hate dogs," he growled. Gladstone's ears flickered and it lay its head back on its front paws, curling its tail around to cover its nose, apparently unconcerned with Sherlock's wishes. Sherlock ran a hand down his face and glanced around the snowy crop of willow trees beside him, uncertain now. He threw the snow claw off of the sled again and strode up to the dog. Gladstone flicked its tail off its face to be able to watch him steadily.

_Follow John's lead._

Sherlock pulled off his gloves and used his bare hands to scrub the frozen spit and eye goo from the animal's face, praying he was not about to lose a finger. The dog pushed its face into his hand and slowly stood up, shaking off its fur. Sherlock smiled, pleased, and Gladstone shoved its nose into his armpit, hiding from the wind, its tail flicking back and forth warily. Sherlock continued to rub heat into the animal's face and ears, until the dog's tail was wagging rapidly, its chest pushing into the heavy harness to get closer to Sherlock's hands.

Sherlock glanced at the window on his way back to the sled, but it was opaque with ice. Still, there was a chip broken away in the corner – where John had knelt up on the mattress and leaned over the kitchen chair to look out. Sherlock flicked his eyes back to the sled, hoping the dogs would pull now, though he hadn't changed anything that he could discern. A short face rub did not merit a day's hard labor. Still, he lifted the snow claw and got himself settled on the foot boards again.

"Hike!" he shouted and Gladstone threw himself into his harness, jerking the sled. The other dogs responded to the sensation and pressed forward, building up the scraping sled's momentum until they were running in steady bounds. Sherlock's pride rose, feeling with wind pick up against his face. "Gee!" Sherlock yelled, when he needed a right turn, heading away from the porcupine trap to head to the west. "Gee!" he called again and the dogs obediently started to turn.

~~/~~


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 7

~~/~~

John finished the skin during the shockingly cold night where the ice fell off the window in a solid sheet and shattered over the floor. Sherlock watched the thick clouds roll toward them throughout the night, but did not mention it. John spent the morning loosening the dogs' chains, feeding them double, and rubbing at their faces and testicles to ease the snow burn, but did not harness them. Clearly he knew what was coming. Sherlock noted the extra meter of slack John had granted the dogs. To keep them from drowning in the building snowbanks around them, he guessed, deciding to calculate how accurate John's snow estimates had been.

They brought food and wood inside and used the lynx pelt to insulate the door as well as possible. Then there was nothing to do but wait in the cold hut and feed the fire.

John heated up a small collection of frozen sap chips on the fire and spent two hours stirring it, never appearing to get bored as he watched the syrup slowly thicken. Sherlock scratched his name in the wall with his fingernails, letting them crack and bleed, wondering for a moment if he'd had it all wrong and that dead woman had torn Rache into the floor out of sheer boredom. He'd never considered the possibility; an oversight. He'd been lucky she'd had been pointing him toward the killer after all. She'd gotten John to shoot the man. That was a far more intriguing outcome.

Sherlock spent a moment considering shooting the next visitor, just to see what John would do.

A cold nose shoved itself into his palm, flipping his hand away from the wall. Gladstone. Sherlock turned to glare at the animal, only to find it licking the blood from his fingers. At least it meant John wouldn't notice, he figured, and let the animal be.

"I know every dimension of this hut," Sherlock commented, glancing toward where John was stepping away from the stove, holding the small pot of sap away from himself.

"I'm sure you do," John replied, shifting the chair base to lay it flat on the floor. Sherlock snarled and turned back to feeding his blood to the dog. There was nothing of _use _to know here, nothing that John didn't already have covered on his own.

Still, Sherlock could see the value in having a second chair and he didn't want to bother puzzling out how to make one on his own, so he let John finish gluing it before he demanded they find a way to have sex for the next ten hours. By then, the storm would have passed for sure.

~~/~~

John's snow estimates were remarkably inaccurate. The dogs still had an extra half meter of chain to keep them from dying by the time the blizzard slowed. Sherlock helped hitch up the sled and didn't mention it. For once, it was a good time for inaccuracy, to keep the dogs alive. They were going to the village and he'd finally see something _new._

The village was a large collection of pre-fabricated homes set in a rather random order. There were no streets, only paths of packed snow made by snowmobiles, snowshoes, and dogs. Some clearly had running water, judging by the pipes, but most had a outhouse anyway. An unreliable sewer system then, most likely. Each home collected a pile of broken electronics, snowmobile parts, trash, and bottles beside its front door. Intelligent stockpiling. Metal, small parts, and plastics.

"This town is remarkably well informed of our arrival," Sherlock muttered, turning in a circle to take in all the houses around them.

~~/~~

John could guess most of what he saw. Cracked open doors, open windows, peering faces around corners, a thousand other signs of a village peering at them.

John walked up the heavy wooden steps of the supply store and pushed his way inside. Ever since he'd saved an elder here from a stray bullet wound – _idiot boys _playing with their guns – he'd gotten almost fair prices. He paid what they asked and sent out his skins to be sold and got by without trouble. The message had spread that John Watson was a better hunter than a doctor – the former profession afforded him much greater respect in this area.

Sherlock, however, drew nothing but unwelcome stares and whispers about the scrawny _naluagmiu_ –whiteman_ – _in their town. John made his way around the narrow shelves and found what he needed as quickly as he could, keeping an ear out for the sounds of Sherlock verbally accosting someone. He got to the counter, ignoring the few kids in the corner staring openly now. Sherlock stepped beside him, his arms full with all of the stores' books and cigarette boxes. The store clerk frowned at Sherlock's excess and John was charged more than usual – the naluagmiu tax apparently restored. Sherlock must have noticed John's frown, for he turned on the overweight annoyed- looking store clerk with a fervor.

"You grew up here but you don't know how to live as John does. You grew up with television and frozen meals instead – obvious given the state of your hands and your waistband. You need glasses but you'd rather spend your money on alcohol – obvious, look at your teeth and skin. Your hair has been thinned by it, less obvious under the caked on layer of grease., but your teeth give you away."

The store clerk gaped, his eyes wide at the influx of speech. John closed his eyes.

"You're married. You drive a snowmobile and repair it yourself - badly assuming it's the one outside. You've noticed the grease stains on your pants but don't care. Your family will never get off of government checks but don't be concerned; those costs will be kept down by the fact that you'll mostly die at a very young age – alcohol poisoning occurs faster amongst the chronically vitamin deficient. The only thing left for you to do is wonder what you are _for,_" Sherlock snarled. The Inupiaq man turned to face John and repeated the price. John raised his eyebrows, Inupiaq for 'yes', and paid for their supplies in cash. Oatmeal, kerosene, trapping wire, yeast, soap, and sugar. Sherlock's selections. John did his best to keep a straight face as Sherlock snarled at the understated reaction and strode out of the store with nothing but his books and cigarettes. The store clerk smiled at him politely, looking rather baffled, apparently having missed the entire tirade, protected by the language barrier.

"Right," John said, pulling the large bag of oatmeal over his right shoulder and grabbing the rest with his right hand.

More people had come out to stare at them and John felt the pressure of their attention ratcheting up his back. He happily tied their supplies into their sled and gee'd the dogs out of town. Sherlock stayed in the sled basket with his books, his expression bored and angry.

~~/~~

February came too slowly. The sun began to break the horizon again, only to dip back down too soon in every afternoon. The snow stayed deep and drifted over the door within hours of clearing it. Sherlock redid each of his experiments as the winter began to fade, until he could tell John the exact temperature from the ice around the door, the mouse turds inside, the way the smoke pulled up through the stove pipe, and how quickly a meal froze up again if left uneaten by the window.

In March the dogfood pile ran low and they fed the malamutes with the lean bear meat they were only too tired of. They had sex less often and Sherlock wondered if he was neglecting John, when he'd given up everything he'd had left for the man, but John snorted and never responded to his questioning. Sherlock stopped worrying and turned his phone and half of the remaining trapping wire into a HAM radio, a process which left the normally silent house suddenly filled with the constant static and occasional beeps of useless morse code chatter.

"Idiots," Sherlock snarled, throwing his fork at the little device. John sat up from his post-food stupor and penned the beeps onto the back of his hand to help him translate it all. Someone was talking about London.

"We only have two forks," John stated, pointing his at where Sherlock's lay on the ground.

"Not hungry," Sherlock stated, rising up from the table and moving to send back a reply, his fingers jamming into the bits of carved wood he'd used as buttons.

In late April the geese began to arrive. They made a decadent break from the endless frozen caribou and John was glad to be able to hunt; his skills with a gun meaning something again. His dogs were fed well.

In May the mice began to rustle more loudly in the moss insulation around the walls and Sherlock shouted and rubbed at his ears to drown them out. The geese sounded constantly on the river, heard all the way into their home. Sherlock started to try to sneak up on John and startle him, day and night, trying to chase his own boredom away. Still, he never managed, and John got to watch the admiration grow in his eyes with every failed attempt. He taught Sherlock how to hunt for otters, how they only came up from a spot once, and catch the beavers who'd circle back to the same place and were easier to hunt.

Caribou trudged down the river banks in long armies, inexorably flowing North. Sherlock made sandwiches, pies, and biscuits with the meat and flour they had until they ran out of yeast. They'd have to wait until the first snowfall to get into town again. The snow started to melt and the river ice thinned, so John could chisel it easier and shovel it out in chunks. Sherlock tapped the birch sap and boiled it into syrup.

It wasn't long before the animals began to disappear from the river. John watched the populations lower and the river ice thin, showing darkness and frozen air bubbles in places he wouldn't want to step, but Sherlock showed no signs of leaving. John considered going back. He could leave the hut and its outhouse, leave the river and the snow and ice, the sled, the dogs. Go to London.

He didn't think he could face the noise, Sherlock's cases taking him so far from him again, the pitying eyes that followed him, knowing Sherlock had left without him.

_He's staying, _John reminded himself, to help himself breathe. The river ice started to melt and John began to believe it. The snow slowly sank away, leaving wet soggy ground in its wake and for a few weeks everything squished. The river water rose daily and Sherlock watched it and watched him and John knew the man was waiting for him to accept it. Sherlock was staying for him, choosing him, over his cases and the work and his brain. It should have been romantic but it was too painful to contemplate. Sherlock loved him and John couldn't help but see how palpably _bad _for the man he was now.

The water rose and John listened to the booming crashes of the ice frozen to the river silt crashing free like surfacing whales. Sherlock stopped coming back to the hut every night, so he could watch the river ice melt free.

One night Sherlock came back to the house after John was asleep, something cautious in his gait, and John knew the river ice had finally broken and shifted and the sheets of ice had begun moving with its current. He listened to the ice pans cracking and crashing in the distance, dragging frozen trees and plants into the river with them. Sherlock slipped into the bed beside him and twisted to pull John into his arms.

It was officially summer now. John swallowed heavily, regret swamping him. Sherlock arms tightened around him. Sherlock was miserable. John could feel it as deep as his bones. He knew Sherlock Holmes as well as he knew himself and the man hated the silence, hated the solitude, hated the boredom and the pacificity and the arctic that John had needed.

John sighed quietly, saying goodbye to the quiet home he'd carved out of the American arctic.

He didn't need it anymore. He wasn't mourning anymore.

He'd been selfish for too long.

"I want to go to London," John said and felt Sherlock still behind him. "I'd like to bring Gladstone, give the others to Iqniq," he suggested. Sherlock nodded, his chin rubbing against John's back.

"I'll call Mycroft," he replied. "He'll send a plane. I think it's clear my brother owes us a few favors."

John snorted.

"How would-" he started and shook his head. The HAM radio.

"I haven't contacted him but it should be doable," Sherlock answered quietly, pulling him closer into his chest. John let himself be dragged. The morning light shone through the frosted window, but the birds were quiet. It was still early. Sherlock pressed his forehead up into John's shoulder blade, a loving gesture John had long since come to recognize. "Thank you, John," Sherlock said quietly.

"Don't – uh – don't die," John requested as calmly as he could, though his heart was racing. He couldn't imagine London without picturing Moriarty and his kind, drawing Sherlock out, pulling him into the next game. He felt Sherlock smirk against his back and relaxed into the touch.

"Don't be ridiculous, John. I can shoot accurately now," he stated. John snorted and Sherlock huffed out a frustrated breath. "There are too many factors to consider before aiming decently," he growled.

"Just let me do the shooting, yeah?" John protested and felt Sherlock smile again.

"That would be preferable," he stated.

John nodded and forced himself to exhale. He counted out his breath for a minute, forcing his heart to calm.

"I won't do it again," Sherlock promised quietly. John nodded, swallowing. They'd get past this.

~~/~~


	9. Chapter 9

John's mukluks seemed to disintegrate the further he got from Heathrow Airport. The thick fabric grew floppy and soggy in the light, warm rain. Sherlock smirked at him when the fabric began to squish loudly with every step. Still, John plodded forward, glad they'd dropped their bags in Mycroft's waiting limo and left it behind. The taxi would actually bring them home, once they could find a willing one.

Gladstone trotted at his side, his tongue wagging out of his mouth. It was twenty eight degrees and humid despite the rain, but the dog kept pace with John all the same until they'd found a taxi. Sherlock spent the ride glued to the cab window, taking in all of the city's minute changes. John had no doubt they'd be dashing through these streets again, needing the fastest shortcut Sherlock could find them.

They reached 221B and John knocked, turning to see Sherlock catching up to him as he'd done the first time they'd arrived so many years ago. But now, Sherlock stared back at John, checking in with him, taking care of him. John met his eyes and nodded more confidently than he felt. Sherlock tucked his hands behind his back in the way that he did when he was nervous and didn't know where to put them.

They'd laid their cards bare to each other to see. Sherlock would die for him. John couldn't live without the man. They had sex. John wasn't sure either of them truly knew what that'd mean, back at 221B. John felt like they were trying to stretch their old skins around themselves and expecting them to fit. But it meant the world to Sherlock to be back in all the noise.

Mrs. Hudson opened the door. John stepped back a step, expecting screaming.

Instead, the old landlady blinked at them both and smiled hugely, her wrinkles deeper now. Sherlock smiled widely, looking almost smug.

"Oh, my boys! Home at last," she said, drawing Sherlock into a hug. Sherlock accepted it, looking rather pleased at John's baffled expression.

Something twisted in John's stomach. Sherlock's smile faded.

"But.. you guessed?" he asked, uncomprehending, and Mrs. Hudson smiled faintly, stepping outside.

"Oh, but Sherlock made a mistake in his stupid plan, didn't he? He'd promised me quite sincerely that he'd show me where he'd hidden his blasted drugs, if he ever left," she said, shaking a finger at the genius. John blinked rapidly and she smiled fondly at him, her eyes remorseful, older than they'd been before.

"You'd gone by the time I'd realized," she said sadly.

"You couldn't have guessed, John," Sherlock stated. John winced, but didn't comment.

They could get past that too.

"And where have you been?" Mrs. Hudson asked, scowling at John's sodden skin shoes as she drew him into a hug. "Those are not coming into my flats, you know," she stated, wagging a finger at him. John couldn't care less. "And -who?" she asked, blinking down at the dog, apparently just noticing the huge animal by John's side. John laid a hand over Gladstone's soft head, wondering what he'd do if Mrs. Hudson rejected the animal. Live elsewhere in London? That felt impossible.

"Gladstone," Sherlock answered, drawing himself up as if preparing for an argument.

"Oh, pepper down," Mrs. Hudson dismissed him, waving an idle hand in his direction and bending over the dog. "I like huskies."

"Malamute," John corrected. Gladstone stayed sitting obediently and Mrs. Hudson stroked the dog's ears, smiling softly.

"I like their eyes. Huskies have such beautiful eyes. Like Sherlock's," she said, smiling again.

"Malamute," John corrected again and Sherlock smirked. Mrs. Hudson swallowed and pulled her hand away, her eyes catching on the two of them again.

"Hush up and come inside. The flat's as you left it, minus the general filth. You go on up, I'll bring you tea," she said, backing up, her voice getting thicker with every word. John followed Sherlock inside and shut the door quietly, watching as tears started to fall down the woman's cheeks.

Sherlock hugged her with one arm, glancing down at her graying hair, his gaze horribly remorseful for a moment as he watched her sob into her hand.

"Oh, my boys," she said, and finally pulled away. Sherlock tucked his hands behind his back again and looked to John for guidance. John grimaced, unsure what to do.

"Tea?" Sherlock asked and suddenly bounded up the stairs toward their old flat. John couldn't tell if he was offering or asking for it, now that he did both. Mrs. Hudson wiped the tears from her eyes with her thumbnail.

"Oh, but he is a funny little man, isn't he? Oh John, I'm so glad you've come home," she exclaimed, looking up the stairs where Sherlock had disappeared.

"You mean the place is still for rent?" John asked, shocked, and Mrs. Hudson looked offended.

"Rent out 221B? England would fall," she protested, turning and walking toward her apartment. For tea, presumably.

~~/~~

Sherlock walked around the apartment quietly, running a finger over the dusty tables and chairs. Dust is eloquent, John remembered, and watched the man inspect the carpet by the window, where he'd always stood playing the violin – where John stood afterward, watching London churning outside, wondering what Sherlock would have seen standing there in his stead. Sherlock's eyes had that haunted look to them again when he turned away. Gladstone followed behind him, licking every surface Sherlock touched.

John sat down on his chair and sent up a cloud of dust around him. Three years. The time weighed between them differently here. Sherlock kept exploring. John knew what he'd find; the flat looked exactly like how he'd left it. The experiments were gone, the refrigerator empty. The kitchen cabinets were still full of their oddball assortment of cups and plates but the chemistry equipment was gone. There was a stack of mail on the small table by John's elbow, collected by Mrs. Hudson before John left. All the bills had gotten paid. Everything else ended up there: coupons for the local gym memberships, adverts for half price boxers, unsolicited credit cards and insurance quotes, all long since expired. John shuffled through them quietly, uncertain why he was bothering.

"Yoo hoo!" Mrs. Hudson called, her feet scrambling up the steps at a pace she'd never done before.

_Mrs. Hudson had surgery on her hip. It's doing better. _

John winced and threw the mail back on the table beside him. Sherlock looked up from where he was running a finger over his long-abandoned books, the spines John had run his finger down, trying to find his friend in the PhD dissertations and studies there. Sherlock frowned, watching John's face, and John smiled grimly. He heard Mrs. Hudson reach the top of the steps and turned to face her, glad for an excuse to look away from the man.

"I brought scones. I thought the two of you should -" she started, before pausing, glancing past John at where Sherlock stood by the fireplace. "spend some time together," she finished awkwardly, rushing to set the tea tray on the small table by John's side. She gathered up the old adverts and hurried away. John glanced at Sherlock, wondering what was on the man's face that had sent the woman scurrying out of their company, but Sherlock looked as confused as he was.

John grabbed a scone and bit into it, glad to have something to eat after the long days of traveling. It'd been a hard ride to town, though the dogs had sold well. He closed his eyes, feeling the heat of London on his skin. It was odd to have his skin so exposed, odd to feel the lightness of thin clothing on his shoulders and hips. They wouldn't be going back to the arctic. Already it was odd that he'd been there at all, though the noise of London felt just as foreign and jarring in his ears. He wanted the silence back. He heard the rustle of fabric and knew Sherlock was taking his own chair, sitting across from him.

"John," Sherlock called quietly. John sighed and opened his eyes. Sherlock was staring into his eyes, his expression concerned.

Sherlock Holmes, in Baker Street again. John swallowed, gratitude threatening to overwhelm him.

"How are you, John?" he asked. John cleared his throat, trying to get the tightness out of his way.

"I'm fine," he said and it was too high pitched. John cleared his throat again and Gladstone stole a biscuit from the low tray. They both ignored him. "Everything's fine. Better," John added.

Sherlock nodded slowly and started back toward the bookshelf. Gladstone proceeded to wolf down the rest of the scones. John threw him the last one and went to take a shower.

"Sex," Sherlock announced as John was walking through the kitchen. John paused, blinking rapidly and turned back to face the man. Sherlock was standing stiffly by the window, rapidly looking more uncomfortable. "Sex will help," he explained.

John blinked, processing.

They didn't quite fit in here yet. For once, one of Sherlock's suggestions actually made sense to him. Sex would help.

"Yeah, alright," he said and Sherlock smiled.

~~/~~

Sherlock stalked Lestrade in the parking garage outside Scotland Yard. John watched him approach the man from the darkness. He stayed crouched by a support beam, kneeling in a long-since-dried puddle of human urine, his SIG in his hand in case he had to shoot Lestrade's gun. Sherlock always did have to be dramatic.

Lestrade lit a cigarette and Sherlock started walking forward, his smirk evident even in the dark room. They'd had to disable three different overhead florescent lights to get this corner as shrouded as it was. Ridiculous, but John could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest and he loved it.

"Those things will kill you," Sherlock stated and stopped before he reached Lestrade's corner of light. To let Greg adjust, presumably. Lestrade froze, his hands still cupping his cigarette, and John watched the man come to his conclusions.

"Oh, you bastard," Greg cursed, pulling his cigarette away.

"It's time to come back," Sherlock said, clearly enjoying himself. John kept his gun down, though he desperately wanted to shoot his lover in the foot, seeing Sherlock's smug expression.

_It did not all work out, _John wanted to growl. Still, he could remember how Sherlock looked at him, in the tundra, when he thought John couldn't see. So very pained by his own deeds.

"You've been letting things slide, Graham," Sherlock drawled, his hands clenched behind his back. His fingers were flickering in his palm; nerves, John thought.

"Greg!" Lestrade corrected angrily. John stood up slowly, putting his gun away. Sherlock was joking, clearly; he'd either never learn Lestrade's name or he'd learn it accurately but he'd never guess _Graham. _

"Greg," Sherlock added, smirking and John watched realization settle over Lestrade's face. He looked _furious _for a moment and John's fingers itched toward his gun. Lestrade's arm tensed. John decided to let him punch Sherlock; the genius deserved it.

But Lestrade's arm swung around the man's shoulders and pulled him into a hug. Sherlock tensed, his whole body suddenly straight as a nail, making what looked to be a very uncomfortable hug. Sherlock could be quite cuddly late at night; John had never seen him look so awkward. Sherlock smiled lightly, clearly trying to figure out a way to escape, before he relaxed and John started walking out of the darkness.

"And John?" Lestrade asked, worry clear in his voice. He pulled away, holding Sherlock by the shoulders. Sherlock's face fell. John blinked, pausing in his stride.

_He still hadn't realized how bad it'd been, _John thought, watching as Sherlock's eyes grew haunted from whatever he saw in Lestrade's expression. Lestrade sighed, his shoulders drooping heavily.

"You thought he went to Alaska to shoot himself," Sherlock deduced, frowning heavily. Lestrade looked instantly confused.

"Alaska?" he asked and Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"Irrelevant," he said, and Lestrade swallowed, apparently drawing his own conclusions.

"I'm not dead, Greg," John said, deciding finally to end the foolishness. Lestrade's head whipped around. John smiled, thrilled to see the man again. Greg's eyes lit up and he glanced back to Sherlock, taking them in together.

"Oh you utter bastards," he repeated. John shook his head and Greg's eyes dimmed again.

"He didn't know," Sherlock confirmed. Greg frowned. John sighed and ran a hand down his face. He didn't want to talk about that time. He looked up to see Greg and Sherlock having some silent conversation, achieved exclusively through glares.

"Enough of this. It's like crap telly. Let's get out of this dank garage and grab something to eat. I've been on duty for forty eight hours," Greg said finally, breaking out of the exchange and finally shoving his cigarette back in its pack.

"I'm not dead. Let's have dinner," Sherlock agreed, smirking. Greg frowned, clearly missing the joke, and glanced at John.

_How can any man have this much fake death in his life? _John wondered, biting his lip. Sherlock's bright eyes searched his face, clearly concerned. John snorted quietly, considering their lives, and Sherlock beamed at him.

"It was the second brother," Sherlock stated, turning back toward Lestrade and shoving his hands into the pockets of his dark coat, suddenly looking much more comfortable. John drank in the sight. This is what he came back for. They could live like this again, somehow.

"I know that much," Greg snorted, shoving his cigarette pack into his pants pocket and starting toward the garage exit. "Help me prove it," he ordered.

John followed behind, taking in Sherlock's tall stature, clean hands and freshly cut hair. The man belonged here.

~~/~~

They got back to the flat that night and John didn't know where to go to bed. He'd never gone into Sherlock's room, not since the suicide. He'd slept on the couch more often than his bed, and he was sure Sherlock could see it in the folds of the cushions or some other minute detail that shouldn't matter at all. They'd had sex against the kitchen wall, neither wanting to kill the mood by investigating either of their bedrooms.

Sherlock answered the question by striding up the stairs toward John's bedroom, apparently unconcerned by the issue. John followed curiously, wondering at the reason. Gladstone's nails clicked up the stairs behind him, and John belatedly realized that someone would need to let the dog out to pee before they slept.

"Your bedroom is larger, gets better light, has a safer escape route to the back alley, and has an overhead fan. Mine is connected to the main floor and better regulated to a new shared area. I was thinking a shared laboratory -slash-butchery. You will continue to bring home live game, yes?" Sherlock answered, rambling as he made his way up the stairs.

John smiled slowly, feeling his heart beat start to pick up as he watched Sherlock Holmes step into his old bedroom.

"I can hardly start trapping and skinning the London squirrel population," he commented, unbuttoning his pants as he made it up the last steps.

"Pity. Why not? It's drastically overpopulated," Sherlock commented, pulling his fine shirt over his shoulders. John smiled, feeling their banter fall back into place.

~~/~~

"Far as I'm concerned, it's not the Yard's fault if they shoot you" Lestrade commented off-hand as he handed them each a pair of sanitary gloves. He led them toward the back of a restaurant strip, a small parking lot filled with police tape and tired-looking officers trying to ignore the overpowering smell of old fish wafting from the nearby dumpster. Sherlock stood tall, his expression haughty and his eyes dancing with arrogant amusement. The great Sherlock Holmes, back from the dead to show off again. John was surprised to find himself enjoying it. The officers gawked and reached for their guns as they passed under the yellow police tape, Lestrade leading the way.

_There is a certain power trip to this, _John thought, amused as he saw a blond officer he vaguely recognized choke on her own spittle.

"Where's Donovan?" John asked quietly and Sherlock threw him an approving glance. Curious too but too proud to ask, John noted, rolling his eyes at the man. Sherlock only straightened further and smirked down at him. John chuckled lightly and Greg pointed into the back of a sushi restaurant brimming with police officers.

Donovan was striding outside, giving orders for camera warrants and phone records. Anderson walked behind her, staring at her ass as he snapped off his gloves. Donovan stopped short, staring at Sherlock Holmes like she was watching her own death.

"Oh bloody hell," she cursed. John blinked, surprised. She didn't sound angry. Donovan gripped a hand over her heart and inhaled sharply. "Oh bloody _hell," _she cursed again and Anderson finally looked up from her ass. He whitened badly.

"It occurs to me that this is not particularly healthy," John commented quietly. Sherlock smirked.

"Regular heart exercise improves cardiovascular health," he stated, pulling on his gloves.

"WebMD tell you that, did it?" John growled, following beside him. "Because that's not remotely what it meant."

Sherlock shrugged casually and smirked as he walked past Donovan's gobsmacked face to duck through the restaurant's broken doorway.

The End

**A/N: Please help my professional writing career by following me on twitter at GwendolynTweets. Thank you! **


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